MACWORLD
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Steven Jobs,
Chairman of the Board,
Apple Computer
m^h Multiplan
A Tour ofWe Mac Desktop
Programming Preview
Macintosh Art Gallery
The Making of the Macintosh
Macintosh
Apple’s Remarkable
New Personal
Computer
An Exclusive
Look Inside the
Macintosh
Word Processing
Tips for
Mac Writers
MacPaint’s
Amazing
Electronic
Easel
Miax)sofe gt^test M
are nowplayiiig onMadntosR
MUITIPLANf The most powerful spreadsheet on the market.
CHART The first truly sophisticated and flexible graphics
system for personal computers.
WORD. Most dedicated word processors can’t touch it.
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Jensen
Smith
Carter
Prentice
fii St name: Rian
last name: Jones
street: 15230 SE ^3rd St. Rpt. 302
city: Belleuue, UIR 98006
date: Mar 25, 1980
acct bal ance: 20
phone: 6|[
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, UJard
, Simpson
, Peters
Marc
Margaret
Mike
Pete
Russel
Steoe
123 N. 55th St.
, 222<4 Northside Or.
, 13-42 UJeatheruane Lan
. 1745 89th PI. NE
, 155-45 8th Rue. SE
. 540 Front St. S, Rpt
. 331 1 88th St. S
FILE. FinaUy, a data manager advanced enough to be simple.
MICROSOFT® BASIC. The industry standard. Plus special
commands for the mouse and bit-mapped graphics.
Microsoft was founded on the idea that computers should
be simple, easy and intuitive. The new Macintosh environ-
ment gives us a great opportunity to prove that idea.
Well start with four of our high performance programs
to make the most of your Mac. And there are more to come.
Lots more.
Pioneering like this is nothing new for us. We wrote the first
microcomputer BASIC in 1975 and developed the operating
system for the IBM® PC.
If you’d like to make the most of your Mac, call 800'426'9400
(in Washington state, call 206'828'8088) for a free brochure
and the name of your nearest Microsoft dealer.
Microsoft and Multiplan are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.
Macintosh is a trademark of Apple Computer. Inc.
TECMAR’S CANDY
^EGINS HEI\p
<m MACINTOSH
RIPH
APPLE JACK™ WINCHESTER
Relax with more disk storage.
5 MByte Removable Cartridge Winchester.
APPLE FRITTER^^ MODEM
A delicious addition to your Apple.
300 or 300/ 1200 baud modem with touch-
tone decoding, pulse/ tone automatic
dialer and full voice interface so all the
features of a full-feature telephone and
modem are provided in one Macintosh
peripheral.
APPLE COBBLER"^
PRINT BUFFER
To sweeten the end of a job.
The user no longer needs to wait for a print-
out before beginning to program again.
CANDY APPLE"* IEEE488
Interface to the GPIB.
For use in industrial control applications.
‘Trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.
Above products will be available in the spring of 1984.
TEGVMR
Tecmarlnc. 6225 Cochran Road Solon (Cleveland), Ohio 44139-3377 Phone:(216)349-0600 Telex: 466692
MACWORLD
The Macintosh Magazine
I State of the Art
16 A Tour of the Mac Desktop
Lon Poole
An introduction to the Mac’s uniform
working environment.
28 A Mouse in the Hand
Daniel Farber
Meet the electronic device that
communicates your commands to
the Mac.
34 Inside the Mac
Matthew Douglas
A close-up look at the hardware that
gives the Mac its amazing power and
speed.
42 Polishing the Mac
David Bunnell
Microsoft’s Bill Gates discuvsses the
development of the Macintosh.
^ Review
50 MacPaint: the Electronic Easel
Jeffrey S. Young
The Mac’s versatile graphics program
allows even beginners to draw upon
their creativity.
62 Word Processing’s New Look
Andrew Fluegelman
An extensive review of the capabilities
oiMacWrite, the Mac’s native word
processing program.
72 Multiplan Meets the Mac
Andrew T Williams
The Macintosh teams up with
Microsoft’s venerable spreadsheet
program.
80 Apple’s Imagewriter Printer
Lon Poole
What you see is what you get with the
Imagewriter.
86 Macware News
Edited by Janet McCandless
Announcements of the latest
developments in Macintosh hardware
and software.
2 Volume 1, Number 1
Hands On
94 Investing with Multiplan
Andrew T Williams
Constructing a simple stock portfolio
valuation worksheet.
104 Tips for Mac Writers
Andrew Fluegelman
Twenty-five word processing hints to
help you use MacWrite more
efficiently
110 SimpleSketch
Lon Poole
Programming the Mac in BASIC and
Pascal.
116 The 64 k Treasure Chest
Lon Poole
The Macintosh Toolbox units provide
application programmers with a
flexible, standard user interface.
122 Open Window
Edited by Andrew Fluegelman
An exchange of Macintosh discoveries.
Photo/ illustration credits: Apple Computer, 37,
38, 127; David Bishop, 11, 17, 30, 35, 73, 80, 117:
Susan Kare, 29, 57, 136-140: Ed Kashi, 10, 13,
14, 42, 44; Will Mosgrove, coven Phil
Schermeister, 128—135; Mick Wiggins, SI.
Community
126 The Making of the Macintosh
Edited by Andrew Fluegelman
Reminiscences of the people who
created the Mac.
136 Macworld Gallery
Edited by Jeffrey S. Young
An exhibition of Macintosh graphic:
Columns
10 A New World
Andrew Fluegelman
13 A Letter from the Publisher
David Bunnell
14 NotePad
Jeffreys. Young
Zooming through the Macintosh
Window
Index
142 Advertisers Index
Macwx)rld 3
MACWORLD
Editorial
Editor-in-Chief: Andrew Fluegelman
Associate Editor: Daniel Farber
Editorial Manager- jdinei McCandless
Contributing Editors: Steve Lambert,
Jonathan Littman, Lon Poole, Jeffrey S. Young
Copy Editors: Bartlett, Erfert Nielson,
Evelyn Spire
Art & Production
Associate Publisher: Jacqueline Poitier
Designer: Marjorie Speigelman
Senior Production Manager: Frances Mann
Assistant Production Manager:
Lee R. Trevino
Art Director: Bruce Charonnat
Editorial Production Manager:
Ellyn Hament
Associate Designers: Dennis McLeod,
Monica Thorsnes
Design Associates: Darcy Blake, Molly
Windsor-McLeod, Donna Sharee
Telecommunications Manager: Art Wilcox
Advertising Traffic Coordinator: Clare
Bouey
Publishing & Sales
Publisher: David Bunnell
Advertising Sales Manager: Penny Rigby
Circulation
Associate Publisher: Cheryl Woodard
Director Single Copy Sales: George Clark
Subscription Director: Carma Winfrey-Hayes
Dealer Sales Manager: Bill Cox
Communications
Manager: Noreen A. Browning
Special Projects
Director: Susan Keller
Administration Director :] 2 s\e.\ McGinnis
Corporate
PC World Communications, Inc.
David Bunnell Chairman
Bartlett R. Rhoades President
Andrew Fluegelman Vice President
Jacqueline Poitier Vice President
Cheryl Woodard Vice President
Volume 1, Number 2
May/June, 1984
Macworld'** (ISSN 0741-8647) is published 6
times a year: February, May/June, July/August,
September/October, November, and
December by PC World Communications,
Inc., 555 De Haro St., San Francisco, CA
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Copr. ©1984 PC World Communications, Inc.
~i
SELLING MR. J.R.
WHAT TO EXPECT:
O O
You will -find many interactions
with Mr. J.R. di-fficult. You are
o involved with plans and ideas. Mr. o
J.R. is concerned with his own
inadequacies. You perform well
O under stress while his performance O
deteriorates markedly. You think up
projects and use initiative to
° carry them through. He will worry °
excessively over difficulties and
^ be unable to take action. You ^
welcome the opportunity to be
creative and work independently.
Q Mr. J.R. prefers to work under an q
authority with daily routines
involving concrete details. You
O enjoy status and monetary rewards. o
He prefers to be recognized for
hard work.
° Exercise caution when dealing with °
this person. Behave in a reserved
Q manner, use a soft voice and q
always avoid threats or criticism.
Remember, Mr. J.R. is uncomfortable
o in groups. He is a hard worker, o
but needs quiet praise.
O CUSTOMER PREPARATION STRATEGY O
PREPARE INFORMATION IN DETAIL:
O O
You tend to focus on the "big
picture" while Mr. J.R, is more
o concerned with details. Prepare to o
give a relatively detailed
presentation. The actual amount
O of detail you present depends on the °
level of detail Mr. J.R. introduces
in the needs analysis phase of your
° meeting. °
Q CUSTOMER CLOSING STRATEGIES q
IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS:
o Get your customer to agree on the ®
details and minor points of the
sales agreement. It is not ^
° necessary to ever mention the sale
itself. Focus on delivery, service
Q and color choice as a way to close q
the deal .
The reason for using the "it's the
o little things" strategy with Mr. O
J.R. is that he is very sensitive
to establishing a sense of
° agreement. By agreeing, even on a ®
relatively small aspect of your
Q business, he will feel more secure q
and more ready to close.
Additionally, because Mr. J.R.
o becomes over — anxious in response to °
major decisions, working on
peripheral details will help him be
° more relaxed... °
Personal power „
in a printout.
o
That's what Human
Edge™ Software gives you °
(see full story at right). o
This typical excerpt from
The Sales Edge™ gives you °
specific strategies to make o
every sales call count. The
complete printout is a °
detailed 3-10 page analysis o
of your business situation.
o
The Sales Edge is available for the
Macintosh® computer. °
^Human Edge and The Sales Edge are trade
marks of Human Edge Software Corporation,
o ^Macintosh is a registered trademark of Apple o
Computer Inc.
4 May /June 1984
Personal power with a stroke of genius.
It takes more than hard work to stay on the
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You can't get personal with a cassette.
Human Edge isn't just the floppy disk
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It's a highly creative career tool you tailor
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Macintosh is a trademark licensed to Apple Computer, Inc.
Howto
get your .Macintosh
programs to market
Quickly.
Call Data Encore. We’re already
duplicating W 2 " microdisk soft-
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As a subsidiary of
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Sunnyvale, CA 94086. Because if you want to harvest profits from the new
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software to market fast. mJdXSi JCjri.COr0 ^
a Verbatim Company
© 1984 Data Encore. Apple and Macintosh are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.
Macintosh
Book
microsor;
SHARE
THE
M4C
EXPERIENCE!
Whether you already own
an Apple Macintosh or are
thinking about buying one.
The Apple Macintosh Book
provides you with a unique
insider's view to this historic
advance in computer
technology.
Cary Lu, formerly executive
editor of High Technology
magazine, takes you
behind the scenes with this
step-by-step guide to how
the Mac and its software
work. You see exactly what
you get- of / in the friendly
visual style of the Mac itself.
Cary observed the develop-
ment of the Mac firsthand,
sharing the excitement of its
evolution with its designers
and programmers. In The
Apple Macintosh Book he
reveals the secrets of the
Mac philosophy. And invites
you to share the Mac
experience.
The Apple Macintosh Book
from^Microsoftii^mm^
Coming in March to your local book and computer store.
Andrew Fluegelman
A New World
Imagine how the fifteenth-cen-
tury explorers felt as the first
news from the newly dis-
covered Western Hemisphere
trickled back to Europe. That is
the only analogy that approxi-
mates the excitement and won-
der that I feel about the
launching of the Macintosh
computer.
As a computer journalist and
adventurer, I’ve had the good
fortune to serve as an explorer,
historian, and guide during the
recent unprecedented expan-
sion of the personal computer
world. When I had my first ex-
perience with the Macintosh,
however, I realized that all my
previous explorations had cov-
ered only one continent.
No machine has ever been
scaled so perfectly for the indi-
vidual user and for the adven-
turesome spirit in such an
accessible form. I confidently
predict that the Mac will
change forever our ideas about
work and creativity — as well as
the way we think about com-
puters. The Mac represents a
new frontier in computing, and
it’s open for all of us to explore,
whether we’re computer
novices or experts.
We’ve created Macworld to
guide us in our journeys of dis-
covery. In each issue we’ll or-
ganize that guide in four
sections. In State of the Art
we’ll take a look at the technol-
ogy that makes the Mac such a
remarkable machine and re-
port on new developments that
make it even more capable and
useful. This issue begins with
Lon Poole’s “Tour of the Mac
Desktop” and Dan Farber’s re-
port on the Macintosh mouse.
Matthew Douglas’ “Inside the
Mac” describes the ingenious
engineering that enables the
Mac to be so compact and
powerful, while Microsoft’s Bill
Gates offers his perspective on
the Mac’s place in computer
history.
Our Review section presents
in-depth evaluations of Macin-
tosh application programs. In
this issue I put MacWrite, the
Mac’s first word processor,
through its paces, and Andrew
Williams describes hov^ Multi-
plan, a well-known electronic
spreadsheet program, fares
when translated into the Macin-
tosh idiom. There is almost no
MacPaint, the
Mac’s innovative drawing pro-
gram. Our review of MacPaint
is by Jeffrey Young, who brings
the perspective of a perceptive
computer novice to bear on
this unique program. As with
all Macworld reviews, you’ll
see that we’re not embarrassed
at expressing enthusiasm nor
inhibited from making
criticisms.
At the end of the Review sec-
tion you’ll find a preview of
three programming languages
and “Macware News,” a Mac-
world department that in-
cludes descriptions of new
hardware and software prod-
ucts for the Mac.
Hands On, the third section
ol Macworld, shows you how
to be more productive and cre-
ative with your Mac. In this is-
sue we present some tips for
streamlining your word pro-
cessing, a short tutorial in for-
matting spreadsheets, and
some easy exercises in BASIC
and Pascal.
A regular part of the Hands
On section will be “Open Win-
dow,” which provides a forum
for readers to contribute their
applications tips and other
computing insights. In this is-
sue Lon Poole shows how he
created a custom letterhead
using MacPaint and MacWrite.
We’re looking forward to the
“Open Window” expanding as
you, our readers, extend the
limits of what is possible with
the Mac.
Our final section. Commu-
nity includes reports on the
ways in which Mac owners
10
Volume 1, Number 1
/
/
make use of their machines
and the ways in which the Mac
changes the way we work,
study, and express ourselves.
For our inaugural issue, we’ve
taken the opportunity to pre-
sent the story of “The Making
of the Mac,” as told by some of
the people on Apple’s Macin-
tosh development team.
A regular part of the Com-
munity section will be “Mac-
world Gallery,” a continuing
exhibition of Macintosh art
contributed by readers. Our
first exhibitor is Susan Kare, the
resident Macintosh artist at Ap-
ple who designed many of the
graphic images and type fonts
that are part of the Macintosh
environment. We encourage
everyone to take mouse in
hand and send us your
creations.
Does all this sound exciting?
Frankly, I think we’ve barely
established a beachhead
in this new world.
Beyond the beach
are forests to clear,
mountains to cross,
and wonders awaiting
us that we can hardly
imagine. In practical terms, I
suspect that there are going to
be more people using the Mac
more creatively to enhance
their lives than any computer yet
invented. That’s what’s got me so
excited about the Macintosh
and the rare opportunity of
bringing it to you through the
pages of Macworld.
Macwx)rld 11
Learn to use
yourMadnto^
almost as fast as you
can eat one.
Soon after Macintosh joins the Apple
family tree we’ll have an ATI training
program ready to teach you how to use it.
ATI’s “How to Use Your Macintosh”
training disk and handbook will join our
rapidly growing “how-to” series. We’ll
also have training programs for all the best
software available for Macintosh.
All ATI training programs take you
through the basics, step-by-step. Our
interactive simulation method lets you
practice as you learn. It’s simple and fun!
Congratulations Macintosh! Together
we’ll help users- and dealers- bear fruit fast.
Contact ATI, 12638 Beatrice Street,
Los Angeles, CA 90066 (213) 546-5579.
Dealers; Call (213) 546-4725.
ATI Training Power'“ is a trademark of American Training International
^ ATI Ifaining Power
Learn software the natural way.
David Bunnell
Letter from the Publisher
Dear Reader,
Welcome to Macivorld and
to a new dimension in personal
computing.
Ideally, computer technology
should serve the practical and
intellectual needs of people.
The Macintosh takes a major
step toward that goal. It is an in-
triguingly elegant machine to
which users become attached
almost from the moment they
switch it on. The Mac reflects
the people-oriented perspec-
tive of the individuals who cre-
ated it, and it will have a
revolutionary impact on the in-
dustry in terms of both hard-
ware and software design.
Not since the introduction of
the IBM Personal Computer
(and the Apple II before it) has
the personal computing scene
been so strongly stimulated by
a new computer. Before long,
there will be thousands of Mac
programs and hundreds of pe-
ripherals as well as books,
training programs, user groups,
and even Mac trade shows.
We believe that the only way
to provide you with the high-
quality publication you deserve
as a participant in the Mac revo-
lution is to participate fully
ourselves. For the staff of
Macworld, this is an oppor-
tunity to explore the uncharted
potential of the Mac, to share
our expertise with Mac users,
and to join what surely will be a
huge Mac support industry.
Macworld, the magazine for
Macintosh users, will be your
guide through the world of
Macintosh computing. We are
an autonomous part of the
world’s largest group of com-
puter publications, including 32
personal computer magazines
around the world. As such, we
are independent of Apple Com-
puter and have absolute free-
dom to report both the good
and the bad experiences of Mac
users. We’ll tell you when prod-
ucts don’t work as advertised as
well as when they do, and
we’ll keep you up to date on
the latest developments in
Macintosh technology and
applications.
In fulfilling this assignment,
we need your help. As much as
possible we want Macworld to
be a reader-interactive maga-
zine. Not only will we be
providing you with hands-on
tips, product reviews, profiles,
and other informative features,
we’ll also invite you to partici-
pate in Mac polls, telecom-
munication conferences, and
other special events. We wel-
come your letters even when
you blast us for something we
said or how we said it.
The bottom line is that we
are producing this magazine
because we believe in it. Thus,
if we get lots of letters from
you, we’ll know we’re doing
our job, and that can only spur
us on to serve Mac users better.
Sincerely,
Publisher
Letters should he mailed
to Letters, Macworld, 555
De Haro St., San Frartcisco,
CA 94107, or electronically
to CompuServe 74055, 415
or The Source STE908.
Macworld 13
NotePad: Jeffrey S. Young
Zooming through
the Macintosh Window
First impressions of the Mac by a
computer novice
Let me start by presenting my
credentials for writing this col-
umn: I’m a novice when it
comes to computers. Sound
odd? Perhaps, but only if you’ve
never encountered Apple’s
Macintosh computer. They’ve
done their job so well at Apple
that within five minutes of sit-
ting in front of the Mac, I was
creating documents, pulling
down menus, and opening win-
dows on top of windows. And
not only that, I was having fun
while I did it.
That’s right,/w^. For me, an
outsider to the computer gen-
eration, the word fun seems
more suited to the world of ar-
cade-style computer games, not
to a computer capable of per-
forming serious applications.
Well, the first time you use
the Fatbits feature in the Mac-
Paint graphics program, see
your drawing expanded on
screen to the dot-by-dot level,
and watch a reduced image of
the entire drawing in the cor-
ner of the window change as
you replace each dot, I guaran-
tee that you’ll be having fun. Or
maybe you’d prefer to select
one of the many type fonts
available in MacWrite to write
your next memo — I can’t wait
to send someone a memo in
Old English. And perhaps you’d
like to place a drawing of your
dog or cat in the middle of a
note. Whatever your prefer-
ence, the horizons of what is
possible with a computer have
suddenly expanded.
Most computers I’ve seen
that are capable of useful ap-
plications are “solemn ma-
chines,” with a businesslike
look and no-nonsense ap-
proach to life. You have to be
extremely motivated (usually
by a job, or perhaps by a pro-
found fascination with gadgetry
and technology) to memorize
the multiple commands and
procedures necessary to make
the machine work. And maybe
once in a while you can run a
clunky imitation of a video-ar-
cade game, pretending that you
are having fun while knowing
that if this entertainment were
from the not-too-distant past, it
would have come packaged in a
nice cardboard box with the
ominous phrase “fun for all
ages” emblazoned upon it.
You don’t need an en-
cyclopedic manual to get
started with the Mac. Basic
word processing operations,
such as changing the line spac-
ing of a document, are so sim-
ple and efficient that even the
most computerphobic people
will feel less intimidated by the
machine.
With other computers I’ve
used, changing the line spacing
of a document involves typing a
series of cryptic commands.
Forget those nightmares when
you use the Mac. With the Mac-
intosh mouse in hand, you just
drag the pointer across the
screen to the small icons above
the document that graphically
depict either single-, double-,
or line-and-a-half spaced text,
and click on the icon with the
spacing you want — the docu-
ment is instantly formatted ac-
cording to your selection.
Don’t like that format after
you’re through with the letter?
Want to go from double to sin-
gle spacing? No big deal — you
select the text by clicking the
mouse button at the start of the
letter and dragging the pointer
to the end of the letter. Next,
drag the pointer to the icon
showing the format you now
want and click the mouse but-
ton. The entire body of text is
rearranged before you can
blink. Perhaps you don’t like
the new arrangement once you
see it. No problem, just click
the mouse button on the icon
representing the original for-
mat or choose the Undo com-
mand from the Edit menu, and
the document instantly reap-
pears in its original format.
Sound too easy? Maybe, but I
for one always figured that
some of those brilliant com-
puter people would eventually
come up with a way for all of us
noncomputer types to use
these machines without dras-
tically changing our lives — that
is, without learning some
new language of keyboard
hieroglyphics.
14
Volume 1, Number 1
The Macintosh concept of
the desktop environment, with
files and folders, windows on
top of other windows, and
commands that can be acti-
vated with a simple action of
your wrist and the mouse, is a
powerful analogy to the way
those of us still living in the
precomputer age organize in-
formation. I have files in draw-
ers and others scattered across
the top of my desk (more on
top than I care to admit). I have
a large collection of pens, pen-
cils, scissors, glues, paper clips,
thumbtacks, cellophane tape,
erasers, rubber bands, and di-
verse notepads cluttering my
desk. I open or close files as
they are needed, take informa-
tion from one file and put it into
another, create new files, and
throw files in the trash.
The overall organization of
the Mac desktop is similar to
my work habits, and it replaces
many of those archaic desk ac-
cessories with more efficient
electronic devices. I feel more
organized and comfortable
with my “electronic” desktop,
especially the way in which I
can control the entire set of op-
erations on the screen with the
mouse and one hand — I lean
back, stretch out my arm, and
edit with ease. No more
hunkering over the keyboard
and typing draft after draft of
not-quite-perfect prose.
And perhaps more impor-
tantly, I feel in command of the
Mac. I don’t think I can make
that point strongly enough:
from the moment I switched on
the computer (without the aid
of any instructions) and en-
countered its desktop-like
screen, I knew that I was in the
presence, not of an enemy ma-
chine to be saddle broken and
conquered, but of an intellec-
tual friend that was going to
take care of certain heretofore
monotonous and unwieldy
tasks.
What I didn’t know (and cer-
tainly didn’t expect from a
computer) was that the ma-
chine would also stimulate my
creative juices in a way I hadn’t
encountered since I first dis-
covered the opposite sex in the
eighth grade. For me, using the
Mac is like wandering into an
overstocked playpen of the
mind, where each path leads to
another path and each discov-
ery produces more avenues to
explore.
By expanding the skills I
have at hand and the tools I
use, the Mac has expanded my
artistic and intellectual bound-
aries. For instance, I haven’t
drawn a picture for years, pri-
marily because I’m so hopeless
an artist, losing MacPaint, how-
ever, I’m rediscovering the lan-
guage of graphic images — I
feel like an electronic Picasso.
What will be the final result
of that new perspective? I don’t
know, and the ingrained habit
of thinking in mostly verbal
terms will take time to reverse.
But I’ll venture a guess that
within a year I’ll be thinking
“visually,” taking into account
the possibilities for graphics in
all my work. That expansion of
my “mental palette” is an excit-
ing prospect. Where it will lead
is the kind of open-ended
question that the Mac asks so
well — and so far refuses to an-
swer with any finite limit.
The Mac may
become the first
truly mass-mar-
ket computer.
The Mac may become the
first truly mass-market com-
puter simply because it doesn’t
take any special language to
make it work. Whoever you are,
whatever you do, you don’t
need to be computer literate to
use it. And yet the simplicity of
the Mac hides a more advanced
computer than has ever before
made it to the personal com-
puter consumer marketplace.
What do the innovations of
the Mac portend for the future?
What are kids going to be like
when they never have to learn
how to use a pencil or an
eraser? Will the Macintosh or
its successors make any lasting
difference, or is the Mac just an-
other mutation of the glorified
electronic beast of the late
twentieth century? These are
questions that will be answered
in the years to come.
However, my intuition tells
me that the Mac will change the
way people think about com-
puters. There are millions of
people like me who don’t want
to have to go very far out of
their way to use a computer.
The Mac will work for us be-
cause at its root, it’s more
powerful than most of those
other personal computers (sim-
ple elegance, such as the ease
with which the Mac works, is
always the most difficult thing
to produce), and it reflects the
practical needs of people, not
technically oriented designers.
Let’s see, if I select the
paintbrush from the tool pal-
ette, choose that herringbone
pattern I love so much, and
start to fill in the series of con-
centric circles I just created...
well, I don’t know if it will give
Picasso a run for his money, but
it is certainly all mine.
Drag the pointer, open a new
window, and take a look out
into the future. Maybe even
climb through that window.
The Macintosh computer has
arrived.
Macworld 15
I State of the Art: Systems
A Tour of the
Mac Desktop
Lon Poole
With the Macintosh,
Apple has added a
new dimension to
computing. Based
on the concept of
a desktop working
environment, the
Mac allows you to
do more with a
personal com-
puter — and more
importantly, do it
more easily and
naturally — than
ever before.
Imagine driving a car that has no steering wheel, ac-
celerator, brake pedal, turn signal lever, or gear selec-
tor. In place of all the familiar manual controls, you
have only a typewriter keyboard.
Any time you want to turn a corner, change lanes,
slow down, speed up, honk your horn, or back up, you
have to type a command sequence on the keyboard.
Unfortunately, the car can’t understand English sen-
tences. Instead, you must hold down a special key with
one finger and type in some letters and numbers, such
as “S20:TLA35,” which means, “Slow to 20, turn left,
and accelerate to 35.”
If you make typing mistakes, one of three things
will happen. If you type an unknown command, the
car radio will bleat and you will have to type the com-
mand again. If what you type happens to be wrong but
is nevertheless a valid command, the car will blindly
obey. (Imagine typing A95 instead of A35.) If you type
something the manufacturer didn’t anticipate, the car
will screech to a halt and shut itself off
No doubt you could learn to drive such a car if
you had sufficient motivation and determination. But
why bother, when so many cars use familiar controls?
Most people wouldn’t.
Most people don’t bother to use a personal com-
puter for the same reasons they wouldn’t bother with a
keyboard-controlled car. Working on a computer isn’t a
natural skill, and the benefits hardly seem worth the
hassle of learning how to get work done in an un-
familiar environment. If you make a typing mistake,
the computer may do nothing, tell you it doesn’t un-
derstand, do the wrong thing, shut itself down, or de-
stroy all the work you’ve done and then shut itself
down. Who cares if the machine is theoretically thou-
sands of times more efficient than pencil and paper?
If using the machine rattles you so much that you can’t
get anything done, it is in fact less efficient and may
waste more time than it saves.
16
Volume 1, Number 1
The Mac desktop con-
tains small pictures, or
icons, that represent
the programs and doc-
uments stored on the
disk inserted in the
Mac's disk drive.
Macworld 17
H State of the Art
What if a computer could let you work in a famil-
iar environment, similar to the way you work at your
desk? You could put things you wanted to work with on
top of the “desk,” move them around, put documents
into folders or files, and even throw things into the
trash. This description accurately fits the working en-
vironment of Apple’s Macintosh computer. The things
you work with on your desk appear not as words and
numbers in regimented lines, but as graphic objects
located on the Mac screen.
Icons
The Mac desktop, being somewhat smaller than
the average desk it models, doesn’t have room enough
for life-sized objects. At first, objects appear on the
Mac desktop as small pictures called icons. On the
Mac, an icon is a symbol for some concept or object.
For example, when you switch on the Mac and insert a
disk, the screen shows two disk-shaped icons and a
trash can (see Figure 1). As a graphic image, an icon
can remind you about what it represents better than
words alone.
Each icon represents a specific collection of infor-
mation. To avoid ambiguity, icons also have labels. The
disk icon (labeled Write/Paint in Figure 1) represents
the documents and programs stored on the disk in-
serted into the Mac’s disk drive. The dimmed disk icon
labeled Alternate Disk is used for copying files from
one disk to another, and the trash can icon labeled
Trash holds documents and programs waiting to be
purged from the disk.
Pointers and the Mouse
On a real desktop, you move things around. You
may work with one document or file for a while,
switch to another, do some minor calculations, check
the time, and then create a new file. When you finish
working on something, you want to put it away some-
where convenient (such as in a file drawer) so you can
retrieve it later. The Mac lets you do all these things,
but the things you work with exist as graphic images
on the Mac’s electronic desktop.
Since you can’t touch things on the Mac desktop,
you need some form of remote control. The mouse is
the key to working on the Mac desktop. Sliding the
mouse on a smooth surface moves a pointer on the
screen. Slide the mouse in any direction — up, down,
sideways, or diagonally — and the on-screen pointer
will move the same distance in the same direction (see
“A Mouse in the Hand” for an in-depth view of the Mac-
intosh mouse).
Moving the mouse moves the pointer, but press-
ing the mouse button makes things happen. For exam-
ple, you can move an icon by placing the pointer over
it, pressing and holding down the mouse button, and
then dragging the icon to a new location. The moment
4 File Edit Uieui Special
Figure 1
The Mac desktop. The Write I Paint disk icon represents the doc-
uments and programs stored on the current disk; the Alter-
nate Disk icon is used for copying files from one disk to
another; and the trash can icon holds discarded documents.
^ # File Edit Uieuj Special
Figure 2
Dragging an icon. As you hold down the mouse button and
move the pointer, an outline of the selected icon moves across
the screen.
Figure 3
The File menu. To select a command, drag the pointer down
the menu and release the mouse button when the command is
highlighted.
18 Volume 1, Number 1
r
^ File Edit Uiem Special
Figure 4
The disk window. The icons represent the documents and pro-
grams on the current disk.
you press the mouse button, the icon is highlighted. As
the pointer moves, it drags an outline of the icon and
its label along. The outline shows you where the icon
will appear when you release the mouse button (see
Figure 2).
Moving the pointer over an icon and pressing and
releasing the mouse button highlights the icon. This
mouse action, called clicking, selects the object but
does nothing except highlight it; you still must specify
an action. In other words, you must give a command.
Menus
On most computer systems, you issue a command
by typing arcane words or symbols on the keyboard.
Remembering such commands is difficult enough
from day to day. Go to Hawaii for a week, and you can
plan on a session with the manual when you return.
The Mac never forces you to remember command
words or type commands on the keyboard. All Mac
commands are listed in menus, and you choose them
with the mouse. Don’t let other menus you have seen
or heard about prejudice you against Mac menus. Most
people say menus are great when you’re learning
something, but they slow you down too much when
you know the ropes. Not on the Mac. Most people com-
plain that menus take over the screen, making the in-
formation they’re acting on invisible. Not on the Mac.
Most people say even with a menu you still end up typ-
ing in a code number or letter. Not on the Mac. Mac
menus are unobtrusive and fast, and require no typing.
The Mac desktop has five primary menus — Apple,
File, Edit, View, and Special — that stretch across the
top of the screen. These menus provide all the com-
mands for organizing and working on the desktop. You
can do everything from opening and closing files to
rearranging icons. The Mac hides its menu commands
under the menu titles. When you move the pointer
over one of the menu titles and press the mouse but-
ton, a list of commands drops down from the menu
bar, temporarily overlaying a small part of the screen.
The Apple menu (represented by the apple sym-
bol) contains a selection of desktop accessories and
controls (see “Desktop Accessories” for a comprehen-
sive look at the Apple menu options). The File menu
lists commands for working with files (see Figure 3),
Macwodd 19
I State of the Art
Desktop Accessories
Daniel Barber
You’ve probably noticed the apple in the
upper-left corner of the desktop menu bar
and wondered what it does. If you press
and hold down the mouse button on this
icon, a list of options will appear instantly
These are the soon-to-be-well-known Mac-
intosh desk accessories, which are manipu-
lated with the mouse and are available as
part of any application program for the
Mac. The desk accessories provide a num-
ber of useful functions similar to those
performed by objects on your “real” desk-
top. The Mac also allows you to create your
own desk accessories. The following are
brief descriptions of each accessory.
• Calculator. The hand-held cal-
culator rose to prominence in the 1970s,
joining pencil and paper as necessary tools
of every student, consumer, and busi-
nessperson. The Mac partially replaces
those “concrete” objects, not only by re-
ducing the need for pencil and paper, but
also by providing a basic four-function,
hand-held calculator. You can use the
mouse to click on the numbers and func-
tion symbols, or you can perform calcula-
tions using the keyboard or the numeric
keypad. Results of calculations can be cut
and pasted into another desk accessory or
into any document, and numbers from a
document can be pasted into the calcula-
tor’s display.
• Clock. We live in a time-conscious
era; we have clocks on our desks, walls,
stoves, cars, and wrists. The Mac also has a
clock that can be placed on the desktop. It
gives you the current date and time and has
an alarm that can be set with the mouse.
You can cop\^ the date and time and paste
them into other documents or accessories.
• Key Caps. The Macintosh comes
with a set of optional characters. The Key
Caps accessory shows the characters you
can type while holding down either the
Option, Shift, or Caps Lock key. To get the
character you want, you can click it while
you are in the Key Caps accessory or type
the particular key combination on the key-
board. Characters typed in the Key Caps
window can be edited, and you can cut and
paste them into an\^ document or desk
accessory.
^ # File Edit Uieiu Special
The NotePad, Clock, Puzzle, and Calculator have functions
similar to those "real” objects on your desktop.
Key Caps displays the Mac's optional character set.
^ 4 File Edit Uieuj Special
The Scrapbook stores images or text that you use frequently.
20 Volume 1, Number 1
• Puzzle. When you need some re-
lief from a difficult computing task, you can
select the Puzzle option. The Apple menu
puzzle is an electronic simulation of the fa-
miliar plastic tile number scramble. You
click on the “titles” to move the numbers
into sequential positions. Whenever you
close the Puzzle the titles are rescrambled.
• Notepad. Taking notes or memos
has become an essential action in our fast-
paced society. People carry around scraps
of paper covered with phone numbers and
financial figures, and appointment books
stuffed with daily reminders. You may not
be able to carry your Mac around, but you
can keep your notes and messages in the
NotePad. It holds up to eight numbered
pages of text that are automatically saved
on the disk in a special NotePad file. Note-
Pad text is editable, and you can cut and
paste text into and out of it. Clicking on the
turned-back corner of a page brings up the
next page, and clicking on the bottom-left
corner brings up the previous page. This
accessory is handy for jotting down notes
that you want to keep separate from a doc-
ument you’re working on. If you are in the
midst of a spreadsheet application and sud-
denly get an idea for the final chapter of
your mystery novel, jot it down in the
NotePad.
• Scrapbook. People often use a
graphic image or a portion of text for sev-
eral purposes. The Mac has a Scrapbook
file for collecting images and text you want
to keep available. For example, if you have
a standard letterhead or logo you use fre-
quently, you can copy or cut it into the
Scrapbook. When you want to paste that el-
ement into a document, scroll through the
contents of the Scrapbook file until the im-
age you want appears and then click the
Paste button in the window.
• Control Panel. If any feature typ-
ifies this machine’s design as a user-scaled
computer, it’s the set of custom options
available in the Control Panel. Calling up
this subprogram permits you to control
nine system functions at any time. Two of
them are fairly straightforward; one lets
you adjust the volume of the internal
speaker, and another resets the time and
date on the Control Panel clock.
Some of the other controls are truly
innovative. You can specify both the rate at
which the keys repeat (clicking the lower
clock
command
blinking
insertion point
blinking
keyboard
repeat rate
keyboard
response rate
The Control Panel allows you to control nine system functions at any time.
numbers causes a slower repeat rate) and
the keyboard response rate (the length of
time a key must be held down before it
produces a repeating character). Clicking a
low number means you’ll have to hold
down the key longer to get a repeating
character; clicking 0 disables the character
repeat feature.
You can also control the blinking rate
of the insertion point (vertical bar) and the
command selection bar. When you drag
the pointer over a command in a pull-
down menu, for example, the command is
highlighted. When you release the mouse
button, the highlighted command blinks
according to the level set in the Control
Panel. (Setting the blinking rate at 0 dis-
ables the feature.) These two options help
users to control the visual cues on the
desktop.
Two controls govern the actions of the
mouse. The mouse tracking control deter-
mines whether the movement of the
mouse on the desktop will produce a
corresponding one-for-one, dot-by-dot
movement of the pointer on the screen.
Setting the mouse tracking control at 0
maintains a constant, dot-by-dot pointer
speed. Setting the control at 1 causes the
pointer to move farther, skipping every
other dot on the screen, but only when you
speed up the mouse movement. Having
the faster mouse tracking speed in opera-
tion facilitates taking action on the screen.
The other mouse control determines
what time span qualifies as a double-click.
This may sound like an abstract concept,
but being able to control double-clicking
speed lets users adjust the computer to
their styles, rather than vice versa. The set-
ting with the arrows closest together is the
most rapid double-clicking speed.
The desktop pattern control feature
has a purely aesthetic function. It allows
you to specify the pattern used for the
desktop. The default setting is a neutral,
50-percent gray pattern. You can scroll
through more than 30 patterns, ranging
from solid black or white to crosshatch-
ings, brick patterns, and wave forms. You
can even customize your own pattern by
editing the pattern in the Fatbits portion of
the pattern window.
The Macintosh might well have been
successful without the Control Panel. The
fact that Apple programmer Andy Hertzfeld
took the time to design it — and that Apple
put his creation into the final product — re-
flects the overall concept of the Macintosh
style of computing.
■ ■■■■■■■■■a Daniel Farher is
the Assistant Editor c/Macworld.
Macworld 21
H State of the Art
and the Edit menu contains basic editing commands.
The View menu lets you organize your files by icon,
name, date, size, or kind on the desktop. The Special
menu includes two options: Clean Up arranges the
icons in orderly rows and columns, and Empty Trash
deletes files permanently from the disk.
Menus operate as if they were spring-loaded. As
long as you hold down the mouse button, the menu
choices (commands) stay in view; when you release
the mouse button, the menu choices disappear back
under the menu bar. While you hold down the mouse
button, you can drag the pointer down the menu. Each
menu choice is highlighted temporarily as the pointer
passes over it. You choose a command from the menu
by releasing the mouse button when the command
you want is highlighted. Also, some of the menu com-
mands have keyboard equivalents, which are listed
next to the corresponding command.
All of the available commands appear in black
type. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to use some of
the commands. Commands that are out of context in
any particular situation appear in gray, or dimmed,
type. They are not highlighted when you move the
pointer over them, and you cannot choose them. In
the File menu, for example, you cannot Close or Print
a document unless you first Open it.
Figure 5
A window showing the
contents of a folder.
Each folder contains
documents and pro-
grams, which in turn
can contain other
documents and
folders.
Windows
When you want to look at the information that
one of the icons represents, you open a window. To
open the disk icon, for example, you first select the
icon by clicking the mouse button while the pointer is
over the disk icon. The icon is highlighted to confirm
that you have selected it. Next, you choose the Open
command from the File menu. An outline zooms out of
the icon and the screen almost fills up with a rectangu-
lar “window” containing icons that represent the docu-
ments and programs on the disk (see Figure 4). The
selected icon becomes hollow (all white) to show that
you have opened it, and the disk icon’s name appears
in a title bar at the top of the window. The line below
the title bar gives information including the number of
files, the amount of disk space they take up, and the
amount of disk space available.
A more efficient way to open an icon is to double-
click the mouse button (quickly press and release
it twice); this action selects the icon and opens a
window.
Some of the icons represent folders that can con-
tain other programs and documents, similar to file
folders on your office desk that combine separate files.
You can see the contents of a folder by selecting and
opening that folder. A new window will appear on the
desktop, displaying the icons that represent the
files stored in the folder (see Figure 5). You can store
folders within folders and use them to organize your
files so that windows don’t get cluttered with too many
documents.
# File Edit Uietu Special
Figure 6
Overlapping windows.
You can open several
windows at once; the
topmost window is the
active window.
22
Volume 1, Number 1
The Mac lets you open several windows simul-
taneously. Select another icon, choose the Open com-
mand from the File menu or double-click on the
selected icon, and another window zooms into exis-
tence. Each new window you open overlaps the exist-
ing windows. You may see the edges of existing
windows sticking out underneath the new window, or
the new window may completely hide everything un-
der it. Windows can also cover up the icons on the Mac
desktop (see Figure 6).
The window on top, or frontmost window, is
called the active window. You can bring any window to
the top and make it the active window by putting the
pointer anywhere on it (even an edge that s sticking
out behind another window) and clicking the mouse
button. You can remove the active window from the
Mac desktop by choosing the Close command from
the File menu. The icon that the window came from
sucks the information back, the window disappears,
and the icon resumes its normal appearance.
You can also move windows around on the Mac
desktop. If you place the pointer over the title bar of a
window, press and hold down the mouse button, and
slide the mouse, a flickering outline of the window is
dragged on the desktop. Let go of the mouse button,
and the window jumps to the new location. When you
move a window by this method, it becomes the top-
most window. However, holding down the §€ key
while you drag a window allows you to move the win-
dow without disturbing its relative position in the pile.
This feature is an example of an “advanced” desktop
management skill that you soon learn after a few work
sessions with the Mac.
Sometimes windows get buried. Unfortunately,
there’s no way to get a side view of the Mac desktop to
see what might be under the frontmost window. But
you can always relocate windows or change their sizes
to uncover the ones underneath.
Window Controls
Think about the appliances you use. They have
pushbuttons, knobs, dials, and other types of controls.
Because the Mac desktop is a general purpose infor-
mation processing appliance, it needs many different
controls. You’ve seen the way elaborate stereo systems
bristle with knobs, buttons, and dials. Imagine adding
a television, telephone, and pocket calculator to that
collection. Pretty intimidating, but nothing compared
to what the Mac would look like if it had separate con-
trols for everything it did.
Most computers handle the control problem by
overworking the keyboard. A few add some so-called
function keys, but you have to be a double-jointed
NASA rocket control specialist to use them effectively.
The Mac displays controls to suit the situation. You use
the mouse to activate buttons and adjust control knobs
displayed on the screen. For example, the disk win-
dow, like most windows, has several controls built in
(see Figure 7). The Mac displays the controls only
when the window is active, however. To close an active
window, you can click the mouse button while the
pointer is over the close box at the left side of the title
bar. Clicking in this displayed box has the same effect
as choosing the Close command from the File menu.
(Savvy Mac users will quickly discover many time-
saving shortcuts.)
The small box displayed in the lower-right corner
of most active windows gives you control over the size
of the window. To make the window narrower, use the
mouse to drag this size box to the left. To make the
window wider, drag the size box to the right. Drag the
size box up and the window gets shorter; drag it down
and the window gets taller. Drag the size box on a di-
agonal to change both height and width simultaneous-
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Window controls en-
able you to change a
window's size, scroll
vertically or horizon-
tally within it, or close
an active window
using the mouse.
Macworld
23
H State of the Art
ly. Changing the window size does not change the size
of what’s displayed, it just changes the amount of infor-
mation you can see at once (see Figure 8).
Sometimes a window doesn’t show all of its con-
tents, even if you’ve fully extended its size. Fortunately,
the scroll bar controls let you scan back and forth over
the available information. Most windows have two
scroll bars. One, located on the left edge of the win-
dow, controls up-and-down movement. The other, lo-
cated at the bottom of the window, controls side-to-
side movement.
Of the many ways to use scroll bars, the simplest
is to click the arrow that points in the direction you
want the window to move over the information. (Actu-
ally, the window stays put on the screen and the infor-
mation moves under it, but the effect is the same as if
the window had moved in the direction of the arrow
used.) If you press and hold the mouse button instead
of just clicking it, the window keeps moving. As the
window moves, a small white box, the scroll box, also
moves. The scroll box gauges the window’s position
relative to the top and bottom, left and right edges of
the screen.
^ # File Edit Uieui Special
Small and large win-
dows. Changing a win-
dow’s size affects the
amount of informa-
tion visible at one
time.
Dialog and Alert Boxes
The Mac takes the unexpected in stride. When
something unusual happens, it displays a special win-
dow to inform you of the exceptional circumstances.
You may have to click some buttons to cancel or con-
tinue an action, manipulate some other controls, or
even type a name on the keyboard. These special win-
dows, called dialog boxes, appear only for the pur-
pose of getting supplemental information from you,
information needed to proceed with the task at hand
(see Figure 9). If the special window appears because
of some potentially dangerous situation (such as when
your disk is almost full), it is called an alert box (see
Figure 10). The appearance of an alert box may be ac-
companied by one or two beeps from the Mac’s
spes^er.
I Edit Search Format Font Style
Draft 2/3
Chapter IV
Saue current document as
Ulrite/Pai...
1 1
1 Draft 2/4 |
[ Saue J [ Cancel ]
[ Driue )
S Entire Document □ Tent Only
years to a time
losely or as
some kind of electronic Einstein that put man into space. The
development of personal computers has somewhat modified that
Figure 9
A dialog box appears
when the Mac needs
additional informa-
tion to proceed.
24
Volume 1, Number 1
Application Programs
The commands available from the menu bar and
the controls displayed on the screen vary depending
on the program you use. Every program has an icon,
and opening that icon starts the program. Starting a
program opens a window in which you can display a
document of your choice. You can create a new docu-
ment or call up an existing document from the disk.
The program also displays its own menu bar and con-
trols that you can use to inspect and change the
document.
Generally speaking, you can also start a program
by opening a document that you created with it. You
can start the MacWrite word processing program, for
example, by opening a letter you wrote using it. You do
this by double-clicking on the icon representing that
document.
On the Mac, however, you can run only one pro-
gram at a time; you can’t open a MacWrite window at
the same time you have a MacPaint window open. Ap-
ple had to leave something for the Lisa to do better.
(You can, however, open and use a desk accessory pro-
gram while you are using another program, and you
can place MacPaint drawings into MacWrite docu-
ments as explained below.)
4 File I
[Search Format Font Style
Draft 2/4
coniroiiea rooms, computers as a uiai
dehumanized society by monitoring tax returns too closely or as
some kind of electronic Einstein that put man into space. The
RImost out of memory! Is it OK if you can't Undo or repeat
Paste?
[ Cancel ]
Figure 10
An alert box warns
of a potentially dan-
gerous situation.
The Universal Interface
Although the specific commands and controls are
different from one program to the next, all Mac pro-
grams adhere to certain conventions, including the
use of icons, windows, menus, and the mouse. Once
you discover a way to do something in one program,
you can apply the same principles in other Mac pro-
grams (see “The Mac Way” for more information about
the Macintosh user interface). For example, the
method for moving information from one part of a
document to another is uniform, no matter what kind
of information is involved. That procedure, called cut
and paste, is done entirely with the mouse and the
Edit menu (see Figure 11). The steps are as follows:
1. Select the information to be moved.
2. Choose the Cut command from the Edit menu.
3. Select the insertion point.
4. Choose the Paste command from the Edit
menu.
Uieu .1 Special
Cut r ;*K
Copy
3t:C
Paste
MU
near
Select Rll
^R
I Shout Clipboard 1
[Stem Folder Empty Folder
o o
Drafts Pictures
Figure 11
The Edit menu. The
Cut and Paste com-
mands are used to
move text or graphics
from one part of a
document to another.
Macworld
25
H State of the Art
You can copy information by choosing the Copy
command instead of the Cut command in step 2. Copy
and paste is completely analogous to cut and paste but
does not delete the original information. Either way,
the procedure works if the information comes from
one document and goes to another, even if the docu-
ments were created by different programs. It doesn’t
matter whether you transfer text to text, text to a draw-
ing, a drawing to a drawing, or a drawing to text.
A Personable Computer
The popular notion of computers dates back 15 or
20 years to a time when computers studded with flash-
ing lights hunkered in climate-controlled rooms.
People viewed computers either as a force that de-
humanized society by monitoring tax returns too
closely or as some kind of electronic Einstein that put
man into space. The development of personal comput-
ers has somewhat modified that perception. Progres-
sive thinkers now regard computers as impersonal
machines, just so many keys to press and commands to
remember. Rudeness is probably the only characteris-
tic anyone would anthropomorphically attribute to
them.
The Mac, on the other hand, is a responsive, ac-
tive, engaging information processing appliance that is
incidentally a computer. It doesn’t intrude. It is quiet,
takes little space, and doesn’t ask you to remember
anything. When you insert a disk, the screen fills with
icons representing objects you find on or around your
desk. These graphic images soon become very famil-
iar to you, like the actual papers, folders, trash can,
and documents they imitate. You copy a document,
choose a command, drag an icon, cut and paste a para-
graph, sketch an illustration, sum a column of num-
bers, all by manipulating objects on the screen with
the mouse. You tell the Mac what to do and it reacts,
not the other way around. You think, “This electronic
desktop may not be so absurd or useless after all.”
Finally, a computer that doesn’t act like one.
Macintosh
Apple Computer, Inc.
20525 Mariani Are.
Cupertino, CA 95014
8001538-9696; in California
8001662-9238
List price: $2495 (includes Macintosh,
keyboard, mouse, owners manual,
system disk, blank disk, power cord,
programmer s switch, two Apple
decals, and tutorial disk and audio
cassette)
The Mac Way
Most computers don’t have a uniform
working environment, or universal inter-
face, like the Macintosh. Consequently,
every application ends up with a different
way of doing the same thing. Trying to re-
member those various ways can be very
frustrating. All of the applications currently
available on the Mac share the same work-
ing environment. If you learn how to edit
text using MacWrite, for example, you can
expect the same basic techniques to work
in MacPaint and Multiplan. Of course,
MacWrite will allow you to do more with
text than will MacPaint or Multiplan, but
all Mac applications have a uniform ap-
proach to fundamental tasks.
Exploring a new application will not
be an intimidating or frustrating experi-
ence because you will be able to apply
what you already know from working with
other applications. You may start by learn-
ing how to draw using MacPaint and find it
so entertaining that you will actually pro-
duce something useful, such as a map to
your house or a letterhead for your per-
sonal stationery. That success will encour-
age you to try writing letters and memos
using MacWrite. Because that experience
was so painless, you’ll brave Multiplan to
create a budget or an expense account. The
working atmosphere is so familiar and con-
sistent from one application to the next that
you will find yourself doing things you
never thought you would even try, with or
without a computer.
All this talk may seem a bit odd or
even pointless if you already use another
personal computer and feel comfortable
with it. You probably have some handy ref-
erence cards listing all the commands for
the programs you use, so if something
should slip your mind, you can easily look
it up.
But admit it, aren’t there times when
you growl in anguish as your computer
deletes the wrong file because of a typo-
26 Volume 1, Number 1
graphical error? (Such errors are impos-
sible on the Mac because you never need
to type commands. ) Don’t you wish you
could move the cursor diagonal!}; not just
up, down, and sideways? (With the mouse
you can move quickh^ from one point di-
rectly to another. ) Wouldn’t you like to get
rid of the pencil and paper you use to re-
mind yourself of which seven cells you
want to add together for a total in a spread-
All of the ap-
plications currently
available on the Mac
share the same work-
ing environment.
sheet? (All you do on the Mac is point at
each cell or at a range of cells, and the pro-
gram remembers for you.) And suppose
\x)u had a word processor \\)u could use
without having to remember dozens of
control codes. Who knows, you might be
tempted to type your own letters and
memos, rather than writing them out long-
hand and having someone else type and
retype them. (You never have to use a con-
trol code in MacWrite . )
Switching to the Mac from another
computer will be far less trouble than try-
ing to remember the multitude of com-
mands for the applications \mi have
alread}' learned. You have a head start over
computer newcomers because you know
word processing concepts such as word
wrap, page headers, boldface characters,
and justified margins, or spreadsheet con-
cepts such as column replication, summing
a range of cells, and dollar formats. All you
have to do is learn how to get around on
the electronic desktop. (Don’t forget that
what \^ou learn about in one application
will stand you in good stead in another.)
It’s not surprising that the first applica-
tions for the Mac use consistent methods
and can share information. What about the
applications to come? Apple is encouraging
independent program developers to create
new applications for the Mac. It will be up
to the programmers who develop new ap-
plications to observe the rules and provide
Mac users with a consistent, familiar work-
ing environment. Fortunately, they have at
least three good reasons to do so:
• Mac owners will be more likely to
buy software that they find familiar and
consistent and hence easy to learn. Given
the choice between two programs with
comparable features, people will always
pick the one that is similar to the programs
they already have. MacPaint, MacWrite,
and Multiplan will set the de facto stan-
dard working environment against which
all other programs will be measured.
• Program developers will not have to
invent, describe, and justify their own
unique operating environment. Apple has
already put years of research, development,
and testing into the design of the Mac desk-
top model. It is general and flexible
enough to work in almost any application.
• The tools that programmers need to
create the prescribed settings and trap-
pings of the desktop environment are built
into the Mac. It costs programmers nothing
to use them. In fact, using them means less
programming, not more, and a more reli-
able program that uses less memory can be
finished and bring in revenue sooner.
If program developers use their imag-
inations to come up with innovative ap-
plications while staying consistently within
the Mac working environment, Apple’s
dream of a universal interface will become
a reality, and the computing power of the
Mac will be accessible to a wider range of
users.
Mac\vx)rld
27
^ State of the Art: Hardware
Daniel Farber
The Macintosh desktop en-
vironment was designed to
make working on a personal
computer easier and more
productive. And the key to
working in that environment
is the mouse. This little, hand-
held device puts you in con-
trol of all the Mac's unique
features.
The juxtaposition of a mouse and a com-
puter on a modern office desktop or your
cozy office at home might seem strange in-
deed. Is it some kind of marriage between
high technology and the rodent popula-
tion, or an example of the arcane Silicon
Valley sense of humor?
Actually, the mouse is not new to com-
puters. It has been around since the early
1960s when Douglas Engelbart, an associ-
ate at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI),
created a small, mouse-shaped device
with three protruding control buttons
that looked like ears and a cable connect-
ing the device to the main unit of the
computer that looked like a mouse tail.
Engelbart s objective was to design interac-
tive computer aids that made using the
machine more natural and less alienating.
Basically, the mouse works as a com-
bination cursor-movement and all-purpose
function key that allows you to operate a
computer independent of the keyboard.
With the Macintosh mouse, for example,
you slide the device over a smooth surface
with your hand, and the graphic pointer on
the screen precisely follows its movement.
A single button on top of the mouse allows
you to select information or objects and ac-
tivate commands. Essentially, the keyboard
is a supplement to the mouse in the Macin-
tosh desktop environment.
The Desktop Mouse
Most people’s first reaction to the
mouse or even the idea of a mouse-driven
menu system is skepticism; they are leery
of the mouse and cannot conceive of a
computer without the noble keyboard and
the familiar alphabet, numerals, and other
symbols engraved on the keytops. No crea-
ture from the lower end of the evolution-
ary tree (or a mechanized gimmick) can
replace the human intelligence embodied
in a typewriterlike machine.
But after you spend a few minutes
moving the mouse around and performing
simple operations on a computer like the
Mac, the thought of a standard cursor and
the familiar keyboard seems less appeal-
ing. At first you may have problems coordi-
nating your hand and eyes as you move the
mouse and simultaneously watch the
pointer move on the screen. You may end
up playing “chicken” with the mouse and
the end of your desk as you try to figure
out how to reach the topmost cell of a
worksheet without sliding the mouse off
the desk (just pick up the mouse and try
again, and you’ll get your bearings). But
after a few hours, you’ll feel like an expert
as you edit a letter or work on your budget
with newfound ease and speed.
Using a mouse draws on an innate
human skill: pointing. It’s as natural as
throwing a ball, but more importantly, it in-
creases your productivity and frees you
from the constraints of the keyboard. Be-
cause the mouse minimizes use of the key-
board, you can concentrate on what’s
happening on the screen, and you won’t
have to memorize or look up all sorts of
keyboard command codes to do your
work. For tasks that don’t require extensive
typing, a mouse in the hand is an efficient
device.
28
Volume 1, Number 1
A MacPaint portrait of the Macintosh mouse
Mouse Lingo
As with other practical tools, specific
terms are used to describe the actions of a
mouse. Initially, you will focus on sliding
the mouse on the desktop. However, once
you get accustomed to working with the
mouse, your reference point will be the
screen. Rather than concentrating on slid-
ing the mouse, you’ll be thinking in terms
of selecting or dragging objects on the
screen; if you press and hold down the
mouse button when the pointer is over an
icon, you can drag the icon to a new loca-
tion. Clicking (pressing and releasing) the
mouse button selects a location within a
document or activates an object.
Double-clicking (pressing and releas-
ing the mouse button twice in rapid suc-
cession) is a shortcut method you’ll quickly
master; for example, instead of selecting an
icon and then moving the pointer to the
File menu to choose a command, you can
double-click the mouse button in most
instances. This action cuts down on the
amount of mouse movement and the num-
ber of steps you need to complete certain
tasks.
Anatomy of a Mouse
The plastic casing of the mouse hides
a rather sophisticated piece of technology.
If you look at the bottom of the mouse,
you’ll see a small rubber-encased steel
tracking ball surrounded by a circular ring.
When you slide the mouse across a desk,
the ball mechanically stimulates two
orthogonal shafts that drive signals in two
corresponding channels: an x channel that
monitors horizontal movement, and ay
channel that monitors vertical movement.
The movement of the mouse is ini-
tially detected by optical sensors on each
channel. There are two light-emitting
sources and two light-detecting sensors for
each channel. An optical wheel at the end
of each shaft has slots, or apertures, in the
optical signal paths. When the wheel ro-
tates, it breaks and releases the beams of
infrared light. The optical signals are in
turn converted to electrical quadrature
signals {xl, x2, yl, y2) by means of the
sensors. These electrical pulses generate
interrupts in the computer. Depending on
the status of the x and quadrature signals,
the interrupt handler will either increment
or decrement the x and 3 ^ locations in
memory
The computer picks up the speed of
the mouse by the number of times the in-
frared beam is broken or unbroken. The
Macworld 29
^ State of the Art
maximum speed that you can move the
mouse without losing pulses (interrupt sig-
nals) is ten inches per second. That speed
is very quick; however, if you exceed that
limit, the pointer may not perfectly track
the movement of the mouse.
The Mac allows you to modify certain
aspects of the mouse’s operation. The Con-
trol Panel option in the Apple menu has
two mouse-related control features. You
can choose from among three settings to
determine the length of time between
clicks that will effect a double-click.
The other mouse control feature, scal-
ing, involves the relationship between the
speed of mouse movement and the dis-
tance covered by the pointer on the screen.
You can set the mouse scaling so that the
The Macintosh mouse
pointer addresses each dot on the screen,
or you can speed up mouse movement by
setting the mouse scaling so that the
pointer skips over every other dot on the
screen. However, the scaling feature will
not work unless you move the mouse
rather quickly; moving the mouse slowly
will address each dot no matter which op-
tion is selected.
Apple’s research showed that the one-
button configuration makes it easier and
less confusing for people learning to use
the mouse. For more expert usage, the
mouse can be used in conjunction with the
keyboard. In MacPaint, for example, hold-
ing down the Option key while you drag a
selected part of a drawing will “stretch” the
image.
The mouse is a sturdy beast, but don’t
let it fall off the table or allow your dog or
cat to chew on it. Having your workspace
as free of dust as possible helps to keep the
mouse in good working condition. You
should also clean the mouse periodically.
The Macintosh owner’s manual gives
detailed instructions for this simple
procedure.
The bottom of the
mouse. The two rollers
within the tracking-
ball shell rotate when
the mouse (tracking
ball) moves, sending
signals down two
channels that monitor
mouse movement.
It’s in the Software
The mouse will come of age in the
1980 s because the software developers at
Apple have created a working environment
that superbly implements mouse technol-
ogy. The mouse did not become a part of
the Mac system as an afterthought, but, as
in the design for the Lisa, was part of the
overall concept from the beginning. The
Mac’s mouse-driven, uniform working en-
vironment allows users to concentrate on
their tasks, rather than on memorizing the
keyboard commands and eccentricities of
various application programs.
As the community of Mac users multi-
plies, and as other computer manufactur-
ers adopt similar mouse-based working
environments, the mouse will become a
constant companion of the keyboard, tak-
ing over many of its functions. The mouse
may not be the ultimate device for interfac-
ing with computers, but for the time being
it’s the best system yet devised for making
computers more compatible with the
people who use them.
mmmmmmmmmmm Daniel Farber is
the Assistant Editor c^Macworld.
The tracking ball is
easily removed for
cleaning the mouse.
30
Volume 1, Number 1
Guess what Microtek
is doing for the Mac?
Just ask us! Microtek, the company that has been
supporting the 11+ and lie for nearly 5 years. After all . .
Look what we did for the Me...
Printer Interfaces
Parallel Printer Card
Serial Printer Card
Graphics Printer Card
Buffered Printer Card
Disk Emulation
128K Disk Emulators
CP/M Disk Emulators
PASCAL Disk Emulators
Video Expansion
80 Column Video Cards for the II +
80 Column Video Cards for the ile
80 Column w/64K Memory
Color Enhancement
16 Color RGB Drivers
256 Color Programmable
RGB Drivers
Communications
Serial Interfaces for Modems
Memory Expansion
16K Memory Expansion Cords
64-128K Memory Expansion Cords
512K Memory Expansion Systems
with software support
utilities & Software
Memory Management
VisiColc Expansion
Color Monitor Programming
CP/M Enhancers
PASCAL Enhancers
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For information and to get on our "Mac Moiling" iist
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=ThinkTank’^=
YOUTL NEVER
LOSE A GOOD IDEA
EVER LOST A GOOD IDEA?
With ThinkTank it's almost impossible. Sit at the keyboard and brainstorm. When an idea
comes, put it in your ThinkTank. Relax, then think some more. Another idea comes to
mind, then another — but you're prepared.
Elaborate as much as you want on any particular idea. ThinkTank will store it on-screen or
"collapse" it into memory off-screen. If, at a later time, you want to edit your "collapsed"
information, you can simply "expand" the heading, bringing the detail back into view.
AN ENTIRELY NEW CATEGORY OF COMPUTER SOFTWARE
Idea processing — fragmented thinking, expanding, revising, deleting . . . limitless
changing and updating of data; this is how the human mind conceptualizes, creates and
stores its refined data.
ThinkTank, available for Apple and IBM personal computers, is a tool which you can use
to capture and organize ideas. It adds to your efficiency as a thinker, and helps you refine
the presentation of ideas.
YOU NEED FLEXIBILITY
Thanks to ThinkTank, personal computers from coast to coast are helping people get the
most out of their ideas. ThinkTank will be your file cabinet, your daily planner, your elec-
tronic secretary . . . Flexible, accessible, and constantly updated, ThinkTank is the first
IDEA PROCESSOR.
WHAT DO THE PROS THINK?
We didn't have to ask. They told us in glowing reviews nationwide.
INFOWOHLD (July 25, 1983): "an amazing tool" . . . "your screen becomes a dynamic
arena for your ideas."
SOFTALK (August 1983): "get more out of your thinking" . . . "limitless permission
to change your mind."
THE NEW YORK TIMES (May 17, 1983): "ThinkTank is so easy to use, and so rela-
tively errorproof that even a first-timer feels as if he's in control of the computer,
instead of the other way around."
SCIENCE DIGEST (August, 1983): "you may well find yourself hooked."
Available for Apple’s Macintosh early in the
second quarter of 1984.
See ThinkTank performing on the revolutionary
new Macintosh at SOFTCON, Booth A931.
ThinkTank and “the first idea processor’’ are trademarks of Living Videotext, Inc.
Apple Is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.
IBM and IBM PC are registered trademarks of International Business Machines
Corporation.
Living Videotext Inc., 1000 Elwell Court, Palo Alto, CA 94303 (415) 964-6300
Thiim^ink
The First Idea Processor
I State of the Art: Hardware
Inside the Mac
A close-up view of the Mac's
internal hardware
Matthew Douglas
The Macintosh’s hardware is every bit as
marvelous as its software. You’re probably
not surprised. But this fact may surprise
you: any competent hardware engineer
could have designed the Mac’s hardware.
Simply take a Motorola 68000 micro-
processor, throw in 64K of ROM, add 128K
of RAM, slap on a couple of high-speed se-
rial ports, cram in a few additional good-
ies, and voila — a Macintosh computer.
Such a computer would have only two
flaws; it would be the size of a large win-
dow air conditioner and would cost thou-
sands of dollars more than the Mac.
The Art of Design
Good design, whether in buildings,
bridges, or computers, is a combination of
craft and art. Great design is great art, and
great art seldom comes from a team pro-
duction. One man, Burrell Smith, is pri-
marily responsible for the awesome speed,
amazing size, and low cost of the Mac.
Hardware engineers are fond of saying
that anything can be designed if you’re
willing to pay the price of high-cost com-
ponents and mammoth power supplies,
just divide the engineering problem into
sections, and then “throw chips” at each
section. Four-voice sound? Throw a big
glob of chips on the board. High-resolution
monitor? Cram a bunch of chips on a big
card and shove it in an expansion slot. Disk
drives? Add another big card full of chips.
Serial ports for the printers, modems, or
networks? More chips, more chips, more
chips, and crank up the power supply. The
result? Bigger size, greater power con-
sumption, greater cost to manufacture, and
bigger price stickers for buyers.
Brilliant engineers, on the other hand,
take a different approach. They create de-
signs that squeeze maximum function
from a minimum of chips. The result is
small, fast machines that sip few watts, are
simple and inexpensive to build, and offer
great reliability.
When hardware engineers gather to
pore over the Mac’s hardware specifica-
tions, they are invariably impressed — and
with good reason. Until Burrell Smith de-
signed the Mac, no one believed it was pos-
sible to fit this much computer onto two
small circuit boards stuck into a compact,
lightweight case.
The 68000
The heart of the Mac is the digital
motherboard, home of the 68000 micro-
processor, read-only (ROM) and random-
access (RAM) memory, and six amazing
chips called PAL (Programmable Array
Logic) chips. The motherboard is located
horizontally at the bottom of the main unit,
in line with the connectors at the rear. An
analog board, containing the power supply,
speaker, and circuitry needed by the video
monitor, is placed vertically along the left,
inside edge (when viewed from the front)
of the main unit. The monitor tube takes
up the inside-middle area, with the Apple/
Sony micro-floppy disk drive tucked
underneath.
The motherboard is where the actual
processing takes place. At the center of
this activity is the Motorola 68000 micro-
processor, a l6-bit minicomputer on a
single chip. If you could peek inside the
68000, you’d notice that the chip can easily
work with 32-bit chunks of information,
what Motorola calls a long word of data.
By comparison, the Apple He, the Ap-
ple III, Z-80 computers, and most CP/M ma-
chines are 8-bit machines. Their internal
unit of information consists of eight binary
digits:
00100100
The 68000 thinks nothing of processing
data chunks like this:
11001100101011001101010111001010
Processing bigger chunks of information
means larger numbers and more complex
instructions can be held within the micro-
processor and then swapped and manipu-
lated between on-chip data and address
registers. The 68000 has 17 on-chip regis-
ters to hold addresses, results, and inter-
mediate calculations.
The 68000 communicates with every-
thing else along an address bus 16 bits
The 68000 chip
can easily work with
32-bit chunks of
information.
wide. Data is slammed in and out 16 bits
at a time, unlike the 8-bit maximum for
8-bit microprocessors. The key word is
throughput; throughput for the 68000 is
about double that of 8-bit processors, or
8/l6-bit processors crippled by only eight
lines to the outside world.
Microprocessors do their work in fre-
quency cycles, similar to the ticks of a met-
ronome. For most 8-bit microprocessors.
34 Volume 1, Number 1
6 Power switch
7 Power input
S Sound jack
9 Serial ports
1 0 External disk drive connector
11 Mouse connector
12 Digital printed circuit hoard
Inside the Macintosh
system unit
1 CRT (cathode ray tube)
2 Yoke
3 Diskdrive
4 Analog printed circuit hoard
5 Clock battery
Macworld 35
I State of the Art
the metronome thuds away at 1 or 2 mega-
hertz (MHz). The 8088 processor within
the IBM Personal Computer steps along at
4.7 MHz. The 68(X)0 within the Mac sprints
at an impressive 8 MHz.
The combination of wide data, a 16-bit
bus, 17 registers, and a fast clock speed
translates into a chip that processes from
one to two million instructions each sec-
ond. That’s some fast thinking.
Memorabilia
The Mac comes to life fairly intelligent,
even when the disk drive is empty. That in-
telligence is contained on two high-density
chips that hold 64K of ROM — memory that
contains almost 500 separate programs,
many of them accessible by other software.
The ROM contents are frozen on silicon;
they can be used or read by other pro-
grams, but can’t be written to or changed.
Most microcomputers have between
2K and 32K of ROM. While the Mac’s 64K of
ROM is impressive, it might be more accu-
While the Mac’s
64K of ROM is impres-
sive, it might be more
accurate to imagine it
as 96 k or even 128K
of ROM.
rate to imagine it as 96K or even 128K of
ROM. The reason is the incredible optim-
ization of program segments within ROM.
Apple’s software engineers put enormous
effort into making each Mac routine as
small and fast as possible, coding, recod-
ing, squeezing, polishing, and refining
every routine until it was lightning fast and
incredibly small. It’s the type of work that
high-level language compilers aren’t smart
enough to do; you’ve got to get down to the
gritty level of assembly language and
thrash it out with the BSETs, RORs, and
SUBQs of assembler.
The ROM chips are a treasure chest for
programmers. Inside are some of the tradi-
tional operating system components such
as interrupt handlers, device drivers, an
asynchronous I/O system, a memory man-
ager, a file system, a segment loader, and
various utilities. Other parts of the Mac’s
ROM are taken up by Bill Atkinson’s Quick-
Draw graphics programs and the Macin-
tosh User Interface Toolbox, a group of
“managers” and services intended to help
program developers conform to the Mac
way of doing applications. The Toolbox
includes routines for handling windows,
menus, dialogs, text editing, controls, and
system resources (see “The 64K Treasure
Chest” for an overview of program devel-
opment on the Mac and the Toolbox units).
The Mac’s RAM is comprised of two
banks of 8 chips each: 128K of RAM on 16
chips. Like the ROM chips, the RAM chips
are “late-model,” high-density integrated
circuits. Although memory can’t be ex-
panded (yet), programs are free to use
ROM code. In effect, application program-
mers will find that the tedious parts of
their programs are prewritten for them
by Apple’s programmers. The attitude
of “making it easy for application
programmers” should result in Mac
programs that look and behave like all
other Mac programs.
The mass of ROM programs takes the
pressure off the Mac’s 128K of RAM. Since
the routines to create menus and dialog
boxes, handle files, and open windows are
already written in ROM, the 128K of RAM
can be used for more specific purposes.
Is 128K enough RAM? Of course not —
there’s no such thing as enough RAM. A
Mac with 256K would be better, 512K bet-
ter still, and even a full megabyte of mem-
ory would certainly be fully consumed by
RAM-hungry programs, help files, RAM
disks, integrated programs, and innumera-
ble crafty utilities.
Expect the 128K limit to be stretched
and pulled in a variety of ways: programs
that shuttle chunks of code in and out of
RAM, files in RAM merged and overlaid on
other files, and virtual memory, which
fools the Mac into believing that disk space
is just so much more RAM.
Another chip, the 6522 Versatile
Interface Adapter, handles the Macintosh
mouse, keyboard, and real-time clock. The
clock is powered by a pen-light battery
accessible from a small panel at the rear
of the main unit. Even when the Mac is
turned off or unplugged, the battery keeps
the time and date constantly updated.
PALS
Possibly the most magical aspects of
the Mac’s hardware are contained in the six
special PAL chips. The PALs achieved a
measure of fame from their starring role in
Tracy Kidder’s Soul of a New Machine
(Avon, New York, 1982), in which they
played a crucial role in the development of
a minicomputer.
The PALs also play a crucial role in
the Mac. They are the equivalent of entire
circuit boards placed on a single chip.
Hardware designers determine the pro-
gramming of a PAL much like they go
about designing entire boards of chips.
Each PAL takes the place of several discrete
components. How many? Again, it depends
on the skill of the designer. The 6 PAL
chips on the Mac motherboard replace,
conservatively, 30 or more conventional in-
tegrated circuits.
The PALs work with the 68000 pro-
cessor, generate different bus and timing
signals, and mediate between the mother-
board and the video display. It’s safe to say
that without the PALs and Burrell Smith’s
inventive PAL programming, the Mac
would have had a radically different
appearance.
A Graphic Display
Appearances can be deceiving. Most
computers display text on one of 24 or 25
“invisible” horizontal lines on the screen.
This display is called text mode. To display
graphics, the software switches to graph-
ics mode, and the display becomes a field
of dots. Each dot, or pixel, is either off (in-
visible) or on (visible). Of course, a com-
puter may have more than one text mode
or two or more graphics modes, or it may
be a mixed mode of graphics and text.
The Mac display has only one mode:
graphics. The entire screen is made up of
dots: 512 dots horizontally and 342 dots
vertically, a total of 175,104 dots that com-
bine to display everything you’ll ever see
on a Mac screen. (Now you know the secret
behind the incredible range of type fonts,
attributes, and type sizes.)
36 Volume 1, Number 1
The heart of the Macintosh:
1
Video counters
9 Inverters
19
Re] 'hoard con t tec tor
the digital motherboard
2
System timing and control (PA Is)
10 Power/ video connector
20
Video shift registers
3
1 5. 66 72 MHz oscillator
11 Serial port
21
Bus cofitrol
4
Reset switch
12 RAM array (64K x 16)
22
Soinul/disk speed cotitrol
5
Interrupt switch
13 ROM (^2KXI6)
23
Serial communicatiotis controller
6
Sound-out jack
14 Serial receiver
24
6522 versatile uiterface adapter
7
RAM address multiplexors
15 Serial driver
25
Real-time clock
8
68000 microprocessor
16 Disk controller
1 7 Internal drive connector
IS External drive connector
26
Mouse connector
Macworld 37
H State of the Art
The Macintosh analog
1
User-accessible brightness control
6
Width coil
12
Power switch
circuit board
2
Speaker
7
Power transformer
13
Video connector
3
Voltage adjust
8
Processor connector
14
Battery holder
4
Height control
9
Flyback transformer
15
Focus control
5
Yoke connector
10 Line filter components
16
Cut-off control
11 Pou ’er input
38
Volume 1, Number 1
Serial Speed
The main link between the 68000 and
the Mac’s two high-speed serial ports is
the serial communications controller, the
8530. These serial ports link accessories,
such as a printer, to the main unit. The se-
rial ports are side by side on the rear panel;
one is marked by an icon representing a
telephone receiver, the other by a printer
icon. But don’t be misled, the ports are
identical; you can plug a printer or a mo-
dem into either port.
Typically, computers have either a par-
allel port, a serial port, or one of each. The
serial ports are usually termed RS-232 se-
rial ports. The RS-232 designation refers to
a communications convention detailing
how to send electronic pulses down a line.
Unfortunately, RS-232 comes from the days
of slow, clunky teletype machines that were
linked to slow computers. Imagine blowing
big peas through a small straw.
Parallel ports are faster but more com-
plicated. Using a parallel port, you can
transmit data in chunks instead of as a
The Mac display
has only one mode:
graphics.
stream of individual bits. Until now, you
needed a college degree (or an excep-
tional salesperson) to determine the
proper serial or parallel printer that would
work with the proper serial or parallel port
and the proper serial or parallel card. Don’t
forget trying to find the right cable.
The Mac does away with the confu-
sion by adopting a new serial convention:
RS-422. The beauty of the RS-422 is four-
fold: it is fairly uncomplicated; it has a high
bandwidth (which, loosely speaking,
means it can pack lots of information, in-
cluding voice, into a cable); it is the new
national standard for serial communica-
tions, meaning that other computers will
eventually have RS-422 ports; and it is fast.
Just how fast is difficult to pinpoint. In
most cases, the serial port handles data
faster than the computer can process it,
which is very fast indeed. Roughly, the
RS-422 hardware can transfer 4 megabytes
of information per second — more than
enough for typical (and untypical) uses.
Four megabytes per second is the hard-
ware limit; software slows the rate down a
good deal. Still, it leaves the old RS-232
ports eating dust.
At the top of the soon-to-come list is
networking — a Mac on every desk, each
with the ability to send messages, mail,
programs, and documents to other Macs.
When networking arrives — and it won’t be
long — making the connection will be
mostly a matter of plugging a cable into an
RS-422 port.
Sony’s Contribution
The Mac’s 3V"2-inch micro-floppy disk
drive adds another chapter to the speed
and storage story. Apple buys its Mac disk
drives from Sony. Although 3k2-inch disk
drives are somewhat new to most buyers,
Sony disk drives have been available in
computers from Hewlett-Packard (HP), and
they’ve proved to be fast and dependable.
The micro-floppy disks are also sturdy,
but they’re not floppy, despite the “Micro
Floppydisk” label on the package. Each
disk is contained in a rigid plastic cover. A
spring-loaded shutter opens when the disk
is inserted to expose the disk’s delicate
recording surface. You’ll never have to
worry about getting fingerprints on the
surface of your disks.
Micro-floppy disks are so small that six
or seven will fit easily into a shirt pocket.
They are sturdy enough to survive being
dropped onto the floor, and sail with ease
through the hazards inflicted by the US.
Postal Service. If the Mac is your first com-
puter, you’re going to like these disks. If
the Mac isn’t your first computer, you’re
going to love them.
The HP disk drives, like those in the
Mac, are Sony single-sided drives. The HP/
Sony drives store 270,000 bytes on each
disk, while the Macintosh/Sony drives have
a formatted capacity of 410,000 bytes. The
difference is in the hardware. The Mac uses
an Apple-designed, variable-speed disk
controller. Depending on what disk area is
under the read/write drive head, the disk
motor spins the disk at between 400 and
600 revolutions per minute (rpm). The
varying speed increases reliability and sim-
plifies the analog read/write electronics.
Most 5!4-inch disks, by comparison, poke
along at 300 rpm, hold from 80K to 320K of
information, and are noisy.
Disk ejection is automatic — no little
doors, no fumbling inside the drive. Go to
the File menu, drag down to the Eject com-
Macintosh/
Sony drives have a
formatted capacity
of 41 0, 000 bytes.
mand, and release the mouse button. A
good two inches of the disk pops out of
the slot.
“But what if I can’t make the software
give me the disk?” you ask. Apple thought
of that. In the absolute worst case imagin-
able, you can switch off the Mac, hold
down the mouse button, and switch on the
machine again. This procedure always
ejects the disk.
For additional storage, an external
disk drive can be plugged into a connector
alongside the serial ports. Currently, Apple
supports only one additional disk drive.
The operating system software, however,
supports up to four disk drives and will
also support double-sided disk drives
when they become available. Double-sided
drives would allow not 410K, but 800,000
bytes per disk.
Analog Bored
Analog electronics are often over-
looked. They’re just not as glamorous as
high-speed microprocessors, fast RAMs, or
snazzy disk drives. But they’re important
nonetheless. The Mac’s analog circuit
board contains the power supply, power
Macworld 39
I State of the Art
Computer Jargon
Janet McCandless
You don’t need any technical
knowledge to operate the Mac-
intosh. You can design compli-
cated electronic spreadsheets,
write memos and letters, or
create an elaborate drawing
without being bothered by the
computer’s hits, bytes, RAM, or
ROM. However, if you want to
know how the Mac is able to
perform your computing tasks,
you’ll need a basic understand-
ing of the technical jargon. The
following glossary briefly ex-
plains some of the terms re-
ferred to in “Inside the Mac.”
• Address bus: a transport
and identification system
whereby circuits route (bus)
information from a memory
location where information is
stored (an address) to another
location.
• Analog circuit: a circuit
that handles information as a
continuous range of physical
values such as voltage, light, or
temperature.
• Bit: a contraction of bi-
nary digit. The computer iden-
tifies each unit of information
as on or off voltage in a circuit.
Bits are grouped together to
form larger units of informa-
tion such as a nibble (4 bits) or
a byte (8 bits).
• Byte: an 8-bit unit of infor-
mation that represents one
character of data.
• Chip: an integrated circuit
formed by thousands of elec-
tronic components etched onto
the surface of a silicon wafer.
• Digital circuit: a circuit
that handles information as
distinct, separate values, most
frequently as binary values of
on or off, 1 or 0.
• Disk drive: a device that
rotates flat, circular magnetic
storage media (disks) past an
electromagnet (head) so that
information can be recorded,
retrieved, or erased.
• K (kilobyte): a measure
of computer memory; one K
equals 1024 bytes, or approx-
imately one-half typewritten,
double-spaced page of text.
• Microprocessor: an inte-
grated circuit usually contained
on a single silicon chip that is
the central processing unit
(CPU), or “brain,” of a micro-
computer. The microprocessor
performs arithmetic and logical
operations and obtains and de-
codes instructions.
• Modem: a device that
links computers into a commu-
nications network. Information
is translated into signals that
can be transmitted from one
computer to another by tele-
phone, satellite, or other
switching systems.
• Motherboard: the main
circuit board onto which
smaller circuit boards or chips
are mounted.
• Network: a means of in-
terconnecting computers so
that information can be easily
exchanged and peripheral
devices shared.
• PAL (Programmable
Array Logic): an integrated
circuit whose exact logical
function is programmable at
the time of manufacture.
• Parallel port: an outlet
(port) that connects the com-
puter with a printer or other
peripheral device through
which several bits of informa-
tion are received or transmitted
at once. Parallel transmission
works faster than serial trans-
mission since more informa-
tion can be sent or received
at a time.
• RAM (random-access
memory): the memory avail-
able to the user for storing in-
formation or instructions. RAM
is read-write memory; it lets
you retrieve (read) information
you have put in the computer
or add (write) new informa-
tion. Data stored in RAM will
be lost when the computer is
turned off unless it is saved on
a magnetic medium such as
tape or disk.
• Register: a temporary
storage unit for information
currently being processed by a
computer such as arithmetic or
logical operations.
• ROM (read-only mem-
ory): the memory the com-
puter uses to store its operating
instructions. The information
in ROM is unalterable and re-
mains in the computer even
when you turn it off.
• Serial port: an outlet
(port) that connects the com-
puter with a printer or other
peripheral device through
which information is received
or transmitted one bit at a time.
• Throughput: a measure
of productivity based on the
number of instructions
executed.
40
Volume 1, Number 1
supply regulator, vertical and horizontal
scanning circuitry, other video features,
and the Mac’s speaker.
Power supplies tend to be heavy and
expensive. The trick to designing a good
power supply, according to Apple’s en-
gineers, is to be “as clever and smart as we
can be and still be flexible.” Translated into
circuits that means an extremely light-
weight switching power supply capable of
delivering clean power, even when the
power from the wall socket is far from op-
timum. The Mac’s power supply can handle
surges and subnormal amounts of power
(within reason), and even keep the Mac
running smoothly during momentary
breaks in power.
If your house has old wiring (or if
you’re subjected to a particularly poor
power company), you might notice that the
lamps in your house sometimes dim mo-
mentarily. If so, don’t worry: your Mac
won’t flicker, dim, or skip a beat.
Three watts from the power supply
are reserved for the internal speaker;
enough power to get a respectable volume
from the 2-inch speaker. How much vol-
ume is up to you. Unlike other computers,
the Mac allows you to vary pitch and vol-
ume and to play up to four notes at the
same time.
The prospect of four-voice chords
might make you wish for more volume. Ap-
ple thought you might. For better tone.
The Mac is the
most sophisticated
computer ever offered
in its price range.
plug a 4 ohm to 10 ohm external speaker
into the audio out jack on the rear panel.
For “eviction notice” sound levels, connect
the Mac to the proper plug on your stereo.
The Mac then becomes, in effect, a pre-
amplifier; the volumes that result will leave
you happily dazed.
The Big Win
The Mac might fool some people. Be-
cause it s small, some may think it’s a toy.
Because it’s inexpensive, some may think
it can’t possibly be useful for business ap-
plications. Because the monitor is black
and white, some may think that graphics
will suffer.
A close look at the Mac’s hardware
proves otherwise. The Mac is the most so-
phisticated computer ever offered in its
price range — and faster and more power-
ful than many machines that cost eight to
ten times more.
The Mac has been the subject of fe-
vered speculation in the past few months.
The consensus was that Apple was about to
win big or lose big. It’s still too early to tell
how the Apple marketeers will fare or what
the competition will be, but one thing is
clear: from a hardware viewpoint the Mac
is truly a big win — rugged, fast, powerful,
expandable, and affordable. A thoroughly
marvelous design.
Macintosh Specifications
Processor
• Motorola MC68000, 32-bit
architecture, 7.8336 MHz
clock frequency
Memory
• 128K bytes RAM
• 64K bytes ROM
Disk capacity
• 400K bytes per formatted
disk, 3 V' 2 -inch diameter hard
shell media
Screen
• 9-inch diagonal high-resolu-
tion black-and-white 512- by
342-pixel bit-mapped display
Interfaces
• synchronous serial keyboard
bus
• two RS-232/RS-422 serial
ports, 230.4K baud maximum
(up to 0.920 megabit per sec-
ond if clocked externally)
• mouse interface
• external disk interface
Sound generator
• 4-voice sound with 8-bit digi-
tal-analog conversion using 22
KHz sample rate
Clock/calendar
• CMOS custom chip with 4.5
volts user-replaceable battery
backup (Eveready No. 523 or
equivalent)
Input
• line voltage: 105 to 125 volts
AC, RMS
• frequency: 50 or 60 Hz
• power: 60 watts
• keyboard: 58-key, 2-key
rollover, software mapped
• mouse: mechanical tracking,
optical shaft encoding, 3.54
pulse per mm. (90 pulse per
inch) of travel
Size
• main unit:
9.7W X 10.9D X 13.5H inches
• keyboard:
13.2W X 5.8D X 2.6H inches
• mouse:
2.4W X 4.3D X 1.5H inches
Weight
• main unit: 16 lbs. 8 oz.
• keyboard: 2 lbs. 8.5 oz.
• mouse: 7 oz.
Environment
• operating temperature: 50F
to 104F
• storing temperature: — 104F
to 122F
• humidity: 5% to 90% relative
humidity
• altitude: 0-15,000 feet
Macworld 41
42 Volume 1, Number 1
I State of the Art: Systems
Polishing the Mac
An interview
with Microsoft’s Bill Gates
Edited by David Bunnell
Bill Gates, Chairman of the Board of Micro-
soft, first learned of the Macintosh from
Steve Jobs in June 1981. By January 1982, a
full two years before the machine s intro-
duction, Gates and a team of programmers
were writing Mac software and participat-
ing in the Mac’s development. Their goal
was to have a range of software tools in-
cluding Microsoft BASIC, Multiplan, and
other application packages ready for the
Mac’s launch or soon thereafter.
Microsoft’s roots in the computer in-
dustry go deep. The company has made
major contributions to the success of many
of personal computing’s most popular ma-
chines. Most notable has been the operat-
ing system for the IBM Personal Computer
(MS-DOS, aka PC-DOS), which has be-
come the standard for l6-bit personal com-
puters. Today Microsoft software is used on
over five million personal computers
worldwide.
Because of his unique experience.
Gates is ideally positioned to understand
both the history and the future develop-
ment of personal computing. In this inter-
view, Macworld Publisher David Bunnell
learns why Gates has already declared the
Macintosh to be a “classic.”
Bunnell: When I interviewed you for
PC Magazines inaugural issue in January
1982, you said the IBM Personal Com-
puter was not a machine you would buy
for your mother. How do you feel about
the Macintosh?
Gates: The Macintosh is far easier to
use than anything we’ve seen before, es-
pecially because of what it’s letting the
software do. Although some of the Mac’s
techniques and features can be found on
earlier machines, the Mac heralds a major
change in how people view and interact
with application programs. That's why I’m
so excited about it. There’s no question
that I’ll let my mom try it out.
Bunnell: Why cant you do the same
things on the PC? What is so special about
the Macintosh?
Gates: The Mac was designed as a
graphics machine. Apple didn’t put in a
ROM character generator or a bunch of
video modes. They put in only one video
mode, and that’s the pure bit-mapped, 512-
by 342-pixel screen. The monitor was de-
signed into the machine so that they could
get extremely crisp pictures and have one
integrated system. They knew what the as-
pect ratio was and how the dots would ap-
pear. And they also made sure that the
mouse would be used and that the 64K
ROM would support very rich graphics
interaction.
You can configure a PC with one of the
better graphics boards and add a Microsoft
mouse and the necessary software, but
that’s not the thrust of the machine. The PC
is used primarily in its text mode, and to
date it’s used mostly without a mouse; you
couldn’t get performance or graphics like
the Mac’s out of the PC at a comparable
price. Although they’re both “turing” ma-
chines (that is, they have finite memory),
the thrust of the Mac is quite different.
Of all the personal computers avail-
able today, the Mac is unique. It’s the first
time somebody said, “We don’t need a lot
of the things that other personal comput-
ers have, so let’s optimize a few areas and
make sure the software is designed around
them.”
Macworld 43
H State of the Art
Bill Gates discusses Microsoft's role in developing the Mac with Macworld Publisher David Bunnell
Bunnell: When did you first become
aware of the Macintosh?
Gates: I talked to Steve Jobs about the
Macintosh project in June 1981. We were
excited about developing new software
and somewhat disappointed that we
weren’t more involved in the Lisa’s devel-
opment. We thought Apple ought to do a
cheaper version of the Lisa, and we didn’t
think the machine had to have so much
memory. We also thought we could move
some of our software over, and we’d always
wanted to have a machine with a straight
bit map.
Steve offered to show us what he was
doing on a confidential basis. We went to
Cupertino in October 1981 and saw a run-
ning prototype. It was running a simple
bouncing-ball program, but even so it was
impressive, and they were talking about a
very aggressive price. We actually signed a
contract to work together in January 1982,
and agreed to devote a lot of good people
to developing a full range of productivity
tools for the Mac.
Bunnell: Can you tell us something
about the nature of your involvement? Is
it just creating application programs?
Gates: No, we’ve had a very in-depth
involvement. Whenever you get involved
with prototype machines that early on, you
are essentially part of the engineering
team; you’re helping to find bugs and mak-
ing suggestions for design changes. Micro-
soft has been an extension of the internal
Mac software team for the last few years.
We’ve had a close working relationship
with the Mac team that has been beneficial
for both sides. We’ve learned a great deal
about doing graphics applications, and
we’ve made sure that their subsystem, di-
alog boxes, and memory manager fit in
properly.
If you compared the Mac to what it
was two years ago, you probably wouldn’t
recognize it. Steve’s vision of where the
machine should go — that it should be a
simple, inexpensive graphics machine —
has been preserved. But the disk, the
memory, the code in ROM, the number of
bits on the screen — they’re all different.
We didn’t realize that we needed to do so
much work with the memory manager,
menus, and dialog boxes. Nor did we know
how we were going to make the Finder
work or how the desktop tools would
work. All of these things eventually got
built into the software that Apple includes
with the system.
Microsoft’s Multiplan was running
over a year and a half ago on the Mac. You
could do recalcs, resize the sheet by mov-
ing the mouse around, and other things.
We thought we’d be finished with that
product in a few months, and in fact every-
one’s schedules were overly optimistic. But
the product has evolved since then. We
started to use the graphics much more,
changed the way scroll bars work, and al-
tered the way data is passed between ap-
plications. We also sped it up considerably
and made sure that the worksheet size
would be adequate.
Look at MacPaint, the program that
Bill Atkinson did internally at Apple. It was
impressive a year and a half ago, but it
wasn’t even close to what it is today. It’s
been polished up since then. For example,
the spray can was included about nine
months ago. Every time we’d meet with Ap-
ple, we’d show them our new stuff, and
they’d show us theirs. We’d tell them that if
we wanted to do something even better,
we’d need more support in the ROM.
As with any ROM, you keep trying to
freeze the thing, because it’s got to be ex-
tremely reliable and there’s a size limit. You
also have to consider the lead time for
masking. Four or five times Apple said to
us, “OK, this is the final ROM.”
Bunnell: You mentioned the mem-
ory size. How do you feel about the whole
memory issue — is it enough for your
applications?
Gates: It’s certainly enough memory.
The Mac started out with 64K, which is
one-sixteenth of what the Lisa started out
with. Because the Mac’s bit map is smaller
than the Lisa’s, we thought we could do
something with that amount of memory.
But we were pushing for 128K all the way,
and about a year ago we switched to 128K.
We figured out how to squeeze the applica-
tions down to that size.
When you’re writing applications that
are going to be simple to use, it’s important
to have some boundaries that prevent you
from throwing in an unlimited number of
features; the memory size provides that
limit. Certainly what we’ve got in terms of
Multichart, Multifile, Multiplan, and Mi-
crosoft BASIC on the Mac are as rich as on
any other machine we’ve seen. I think the
people at Apple would openly admit that
Plan, File, and Chart are more powerful
than their equivalents on the Lisa, and yet
they run on an eighth as much memory.
44 Volume 1, Number 1
When you do get more memory, you’ll be
able to have multiple applications active or
have more data space available. It’s partly
these boundaries that have forced us to
find more clever ways to do things and stay
within the memory size. It’s caused us to
be more innovative than we would have
been if we’d had a megabyte.
Bunnell: What programming tech-
niques do you use to work within the
memory limit?
Gates: You’ve got to take advantage of
what’s in the ROM and learn to do very
tight code. It’s not simple to write software
for the Mac. Over time, as really good pro-
gram development tools emerge, people
will become proficient at writing programs
for the Mac.
Look at the Apple II. It took about two
years before people were really exploiting
its capabilities. If you look at the IBM PC,
products such as Microsoft Word, Flight
Simulator, or 1-2-3 took a year and a half
to emerge. That’s because you’ve got to get
the tools together — you have to under-
stand how to push the machine to its limit.
I think we started that cycle much earlier
with the Mac. Maybe a year and a half from
now I’ll say, “Wow, even I didn’t realize the
Mac could do this newer stuff!” For exam-
ple, some facilities are available for music
in the Mac that we’re not using well yet.
And there’s even talk about how that ca-
pability could be extended to include voice
synthesis. In the peripherals area, the Mac
has those two RS-422 ports, and nobody’s
really exploiting them yet.
Bunnell: What impact do you think
the Macintosh will have on personal
computing?
Gates: I think the Mac will mean that
there’s at least one company besides IBM
in the personal computer business that
doesn’t have to do everything the IBM way.
It’s healthy for the industry to have Apple
offering an alternative. The Apple II and
the IBM PC will be joined by a third fan-
tastically successful machine — the Mac —
so we’re expecting to develop a lot of soft-
ware for it. It’s more than just the Mac’s
hardware and software that’s being ap-
proached in an innovative way — some in-
novative work is being done in terms of
getting sales people and college students
involved with this machine.
The reason people like the computer
business is that it’s innovative. We’ve got to
continue to experiment with how comput-
ers are built and come up with new ideas,
or else this industry isn’t going to stay as
exciting and fast moving as it is now. I’ve al-
ways said that the Mac is an ideal machine
for office use, but it’s also a great general
purpose machine. We think it will address
several markets and remind people that
the pace of innovation hasn’t slowed down
in the industry.
Bunnell: Do you think the Mac is
going to change the way people use
computers?
Gates: We’ve always promised people
that they could simply buy a computer, turn
it on, and use it. Even the Mac doesn’t fulfill
Microsoft has
been an extension of
the internal Mac soft-
ware team for the last
few years.
this promise, but it’s a new milestone in
terms of usability. The way the menus and
graphics work is so compelling that you’re
enticed to learn that next feature — you
want to try it out and see if it works the way
you think it should. The Mac has so little
hidden behavior that it will attract a new
class of users.
Many people have held back, thinking
that computers are complicated, mathe-
matical, scientific-type machines; they
haven’t viewed them as a medium of ex-
pression, as machines with which you can
do creative things. But many people will sit
down and use MacPaint or Multichart and
realize that the Mac is not confined to the
computer stereotype. I’ll enjoy having
some people I know who are new to com-
puters play with the Mac and see if it
doesn’t draw them into the excitement of
interactive personal computing.
Bunnell: Do you plan to have pro-
grams such as Flight Simulator on the
Mac?
Gates: We’re working on many prod-
ucts, and Flight Simulator is certainly a
good product. Bruce Artwick originally
did Flight Simulator for the Apple II. He
pushed the Apple II to its limit and proved
that the machine could do many things that
people didn’t think it could do. When the
IBM PC came out, Bruce proved that the PC
could do many things that people didn’t
think were possible. Now he’s taken on the
challenge of proving to all of us that the
Mac can do things that we don’t think are
possible. He’s talked about things like
shading and surfaces, and about getting
more realism into the program than what’s
in the PC version. Certainly within the
next year he’ll generate another fantastic
program.
Bunnell: What about the lack of
color? You have all of these beautiful
graphics but no color.
Gates: The perfect machine will never
exist, and the obvious difference between
the perfect machine and the Mac is that
you could ask for more memory, color, and
a faster way to move data in and out of the
machine. But when you look at price, you’ll
acknowledge that this machine is incredi-
ble. The Mac is an 8 MHz 68000 machine; if
you take a PCjr, configure it up, and set it
side by side with the Mac, there will be
more than a three-to-one difference in raw
horsepower. Since the PCjr has about two-
thirds the horsepower of a PC, the Mac has
easily twice that of a PC. That’s a lot of
power, and that power can be exploited in
many ways, including moving bits around
on the screen.
If Apple had tried to put color in this
machine, it wouldn’t have been available
for a few years, because we’d need three
times as many bits for the screen and more
memory. We’d have to use 256K chips, and
the design of our applications would be dif-
ferent. I think Apple made the right trade-
off, but someday a Mac or the equivalent of
a Mac with color would be wonderful.
Bunnell: Some people have predicted
that the Macintosh is going to be a classic.
Do you think that's correct?
Gates: The Mac is fun and exciting,
and it fulfills Apple’s image of producing
very personal, interactive, state-of-the-art
computers. It’s a blend of Apple’s knowl-
edge of what personal computing should
be and what the semiconductor industry
has made possible. It’s a great mixture, and
it’s something that Apple is perfectly posi-
tioned to sell to people. The Mac will be re-
membered as one of the great classic
machines.
Macworld 45
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^ Review: Graphics
MacPaint: the
Electronic Easel
Jeffreys. Young
Imagine being an artist. Not just any artist, mind you. Imagine
being a computer artist, with the kind of processing power
computers have long applied to words now extended to
drawing and painting. Imagine that you can reach up onto a
tool shelf, take down one of 32 different paintbrushes, dip it
into one of 38 patterns arrayed on your electronic palette, and
with a sweep of your hand produce complex brushstrokes
in crosshatches and herringbones, zigzags and pinstripes,
rattans and checkerboards. Maybe you want to mirror your
strokes as you draw them on up to four axes. Or perhaps you
want to flip the result horizontally or vertically, or rotate it by
90-degree turns, or even invert the blacks and whites.
Then you need to clean up a couple of ragged corners in
your drawing, so you zoom in and tidy up your image at the
dot-by-dot level, moving the page around as though you were
sliding your drawing back and forth under a microscope.
Perhaps as you look at your entire design you decide
there’s only one section that you like, and the rest is dispens-
able. You select the section you want, copy it, and paste that
copy into a document. Your original is intact, the new docu-
ment has the detail you prefer, and you’ve done it in moments.
50 Volume 1, Number 1
Maovx)rld
51
^ Review
Figure 1
The Introduction option from the Goodies menu provides a
quick reference to the MacPaint features.
MacPaint is the
electronic equivalent
of having top-flight
artist’s tools and skills
at your fingertips.
Save the new copy, return to the original file, and
with a double-click on the eraser the screen you
started with is wiped clean. No tiny eraser rubbings
covering your desktop, no glue stuck to your fingers,
no shreds of trimmed paper blowing across the hard-
wood floors, no smudged thumbprints and crinkled
originals. And the drawings you create needn’t exist
only on the screen. Anything that appears on the
screen can be printed with remarkable accuracy.
And that’s only the beginning. MacPaint, the
Macintosh’s native graphics program, is the electronic
equivalent of having top-flight artist’s tools and skills
at your fingertips — except the artistic talent that sepa-
rated most of us from the arts at an early age is no
longer as relevant. The limitless possibilities of a blank
canvas are fully equaled by the blank screen confront-
ing you as the program starts up . . . perhaps more than
equaled with the diversity of patterns and tool choices
available on the palettes surrounding the electronic
canvas. The only elements missing are the smell of lin-
seed oil and the drips of paint on your clothes.
52
Volume 1, Number 1
A Brief Introduction
From the moment you double-click on the Mac-
Paint file in the disk window and watch as the blank
canvas appears, followed quickly by the tool, border,
and pattern palettes, you know that you’ve stepped into
a different world. If you are overwhelmed by all of the
choices that have suddenly appeared on your screen, a
good place to start is with the Introduction in the
Goodies menu. This menu option displays a screen
with MacPaint tools and palettes labeled (see Fig-
ure 1). Although most of the icons are self-explanatory,
this feature should clear up any questions.
The Paintbrush and the Pencil
Tools are at the heart of MacPaint, and the most
important of these are the paintbrush and the pencil.
You select the tool and pattern you want by clicking
the pointer on the appropriate icon. The paintbrush
can paint in any of the patterns displayed in the pattern
palette at the bottom of the screen, using shapes avail-
able from the Brush Shape option in the Goodies
menu (see Figure 2). You can also look at the brush
shapes by double-clicking on the brush icon. The pen-
cil draws a narrow, black, freeform line (clicking the
mouse button changes the pencil color to white when
you are drawing on top of filled patterns).
You may have some trouble getting used to these
tools. It took me quite a while to master the delicate
interrelationship between holding down the mouse
button and moving the mouse (the combination of ac-
tions needed to actually put something on the screen)
and the resulting image on the page. Drawing is a deli-
cate operation usually performed by a utensil held in
the fingers, not a small plastic box with a button on top
held in the hand. Perhaps someone will design a
mouse the size and shape of a bail-point pen, making
it even easier to draw on the screen.
As a freeform tool, the pencil is much more diffi-
cult to master than the paintbrush. Because the various
brush shapes are wider than the single-dot pencil,
making a less precise brushstroke is hardly noticeable,
whereas the pencil creates unappealing, ragged lines
(see Figure 3). However, once I had learned to use the
Shift key in conjunction with the pencil, I was able to
create straight, smooth, and precise lines with no hint
of roughness. Unfortunately, using the Shift key allows
only vertical or horizontal lines to be drawn; with free-
form drawing (in which the Shift key option is unavail-
able) you still have the problem of jagged lines. The
straight line tool also provides a rapid means of pro-
ducing straight lines in any configuration, in any of the
four widths shown in the border palette in the lower-
left corner.
Shapes
The ten filled and hollow geometric shapes in the
tool palette provide a wide variety of possibilities for
drawing. The hollow shapes display a black outline in
a width determined by the border palette selection,
and leave the interior either empty or transparent to
the design behind them. The solid shapes also display
the outline in the currently selected border width,
while filling the interior of the shape with the cur-
rently selected pattern. If the dotted line in the border
palette is selected, the filled shapes will have no
outlines.
The rectangle, rounded-corner rectangle, and
circle take on continuously changing shapes as you
move them with the mouse (see Figures 4 and 5).
Using the Shift key with the mouse, however, provides
perfect squares and circles.
IhQ freeform shape and the polygon let you
create shapes in any combination or configuration. You
can fill them in with patterns or vary the border width
just as with the predefined shapes. Any enclosed ob-
ject, either straight-line or freeform, can be filled with
any pattern.
The Paint Bucket and the Spray Can
The paint bucket fills in enclosed spaces, provid-
ing a quick way to insert broad swathes of patterns
throughout a drawing (see Figure 6). When using the
paint bucket, you must make sure that the section you
want to fill with a pattern is actually an enclosed space.
If even a single dot is missing from the perimeter, the
paint bucket will spill the pattern across your drawing
until it finds an enclosed section somewhere else; if no
other sections are enclosed, it will fill the entire
screen. Don’t worry if this happens; you can mop up
the spilled paint by selecting the Undo command from
the Edit menu.
In the days before MacPaint, filling an area with a
pattern would have taken hours to accomplish. Now it
can be done in seconds using any of the choices in the
pattern palette.
MacPaint takes the spray can out of the street and
makes it into a nimble artistic tool. The spray can
sprays any pattern selected in a realistic way (see Fig-
ure 7). With the first few passes, the filling-in is faint,
as with a real spray can; if you continue to cover the
same area, it fills in gradually until you have a solid
belt of paint. Perhaps the Mac will bring graffiti into
the computer age; you’ll turn on your computer one
day to discover a rude comment sprayed across one of
your files.
Macworld 53
^ Review
The Eraser
The ability to erase is an excellent example of the
flexibility oi MacPaint' s program design. The two pri-
mary ways to erase are selecting the eraser and drag-
ging it over the part of the drawing you want to
remove, or double-clicking the mouse on the eraser
icon, which clears the entire drawing screen. When
you click on the eraser icon, a box about a quarter inch
square appears on the screen (see Figure 8). This
shape is quite unwieldy if you need to erase a small
section of a detailed drawing.
An efficient way to erase is to “paint with white.”
Choose the white pattern from the pattern palette and
the paintbrush from the tool palette, select a brush
shape, and then paint over the portions of the drawing
that you want to erase. The advantage of this tech-
nique, although it is a little more complicated than sim-
ply selecting the eraser, is that the wide choice of
brush shapes allows you to be much more precise in
what you remove.
FatBits
One of the great qualities of this program is that
any drawing you create on the screen can be cleaned
up at the single-dot level. So what if the line you drew
with the pencil is a bit jagged? All you have to do to
improve details of your work is select the FatBits fea-
ture, either by pulling down the Goodies menu and
choosing the FatBits option or by double-clicking on
the pencil icon. An enlarged dot-by-dot pattern of a
section of your drawing (determined by the location
of the last screen activity) is displayed, as well as an
overall picture of the entire drawing in the upper-left
corner of the screen (see Figure 9). In FatBits, the pen-
cil can either insert or erase a dot, and you can watch
the success (or failure) of your efforts in the insert
screen in the corner. When you’re satisfied, a single
click in the insert screen returns you to the full
drawing.
This is a remarkable capability. FatBits enables
you to zoom into the 99,840 dots that make up the
MacPaint screen and manipulate each individual dot.
This ability to work on details, coupled with the vir-
tually inexhaustible supply of scrap paper that the
eraser gives you, allows anyone, with or without any
artistic skills, to turn out respectable drawings with
minimal practice.
Figure 2
You can choose from among the 32 paintbrush shapes shown
in the Brush Shape option.
^ # File Edit Goodies Font FontSize Style
Figure 3
Paintbrush strokes are more attractive and less difficult to
create than freeform lines drawn with the pencil.
^ 4 File Edit Goodies Font FontSize Style
Figure 4
Filled and hollow rectangles can be enhanced using any of
the patterns and the various border widths.
54
Volume 1, Number 1
Creating Patterns
One of MacPainfs unique capabilities is revealed
when you drag the pointer down onto the pattern pal-
ette and double-click on any of the 38 choices. The re-
sult is a pattern edit window in which you can modify
the dot-by-dot representation of each pattern while
watching the effect of your changes on a full-pattern
representation next to it (see Figure 10). With a little
practice (it’s not that easy to get used to the limited 8-
by 8-dot pattern easel), this feature enables you to
create an entire series of customized patterns.
Figure 5
Circles and ovals can be filled with any pattern and outlined
by any of the border widths.
Figure 6
The paint bucket fills enclosed spaces with the currently se-
lected pattern.
Once you’ve changed a pattern to your liking,
click the box labeled “OK.” The Mac will store it in the
pattern palette of the current MacPaint file. Whenever
you return to that file, the patterns you created will be
available. The default set of patterns will always ap-
pear on a new file created from the tmsiQv MacPaint
program, however. Having the ability to customize the
program is one of the most appealing qualities of
MacPaint.
Selectors
To fully utilize the program, you must become fa-
miliar with the two selector tools, the lasso and the se-
lection rectangle, or marquee. They provide ways of
selecting a part of the drawing on the screen and per-
forming any of a series of operations on it (for in-
stance, all of the Edit options require a selected piece
of the drawing to operate on).
These two tools are quite different. The marquee,
with its box approach, is fairly straightforward, except
for learning how to position the starting point to in-
clude the section of the drawing that you want to se-
lect — this maneuver takes practice. Once you have
surrounded a section of your drawing with the
marquee’s dotted box, you can move that section
or perform operations on it (see Figure 11).
The lasso, on the other hand, draws a line that en-
circles an object and then shrinks to include only the
object — not the surrounding background — inside its
freeform drawn rope (see Figure 12). After selecting
an object, you can move it by positioning the lasso on
it (the lasso will change to an arrow), holding down
the mouse button, and dragging the object to the de-
sired location. This can be particularly helpful when
you are lifting one item out of a fully developed draw-
ing or moving text without the white background.
^ ^ File Edit Goodies Font FontSize Style
Figure 7
The spray can sprays any pattern in a realistic way, helping, to
create a three-dimensional effect.
Macworld 55
Review:
The Man Behind MacPaint
When you select \\\^ MacPaint program,
the title bar on the screen reads “MacPaint
by Bill Atkinson” before you are presented
with a blank canvas or a MacPaint docu-
ment. It's unusual to see an author’s name
appear on the screen, and \x)u might well
wonder why this programmer deserves
such an honor.
Bill Atkinson, chief programming ar-
chitect of both the Macintosh user inter-
face and the MacPaint program, has been
with Apple since 1978. He was the first ap-
plications programmer the company hired
and is now one of three Apple Fellows, the
equivalent of senior vice-presidents of en-
gineering. Bill designed the first Dow Jones
stock portfolio program for the Apple II
and rewrote UCSD Pascal to give the com-
pany a high-level programming language.
Later he joined the original Lisa develop-
ment team, where many of the Mac’s fea-
tures originated.
Bill describes himself this way: “I’m
somewhere between an artist and an in-
ventor. If I’d been born during the indus-
trial revolution. I’d have used gears and
pulleys. The computer is simply a more
modern inventor’s medium.”
Since the Mac has much less memory
than the Lisa, Mac programmers could not
afford to waste a bit of memory space.
“Writing clean code is a science. It takes a
clean, orderly mind. I was “Mr. User Inter-
face” on the Lisa and did the QuickDraw
graphics primitives — 40,000 lines of fine-
tuned 68000 assembly language code. In
my worst-case scenario with MacPaint —
and believe me, I know just what it is —
there are 300 free bytes left in the RAM out
of the 128,000 the machine can handle.
Every line of code has been made small,
compact, and folded. There is no extra
room.”
His entire attention is focused on the
machine as he works with the mouse, key-
board, and disk drives. He moves through
the Mac’s world with the speedy ease of
utter familiarity. Bill Atkinson knows
where every bit of code lives, how to get
there, and what it ought to look like when
it is invoked. “Fatbits is the inside of the
machine. I’ve been there and that’s what it
looks like. I’m still excited every time I
double-click on the pencil and start scroll-
ing along at the single-dot level.”
Bill works out of his home, not sur-
prisingly surrounded by dozens of Apple
computers as well as state-of-the-art pe-
ripherals. He has a digitizer program up
and running, generating dot-by-dot repre-
sentations of anything that can be pho-
tographed with a video camera. “What if
you could get a disk with all kinds of clip
art on it? It would provide standard draw-
ings, illustrations, and details. With the dig-
itizer we can create such a disk. Maybe
someday every computer dealer will have
Text
MacPaint allows you to include text in your art-
work. When you click on the text icon (represented by
the letter A), you have access to the wide variety of
type fonts, styles, and sizes available in the Mac’s resi-
dent memory (see “Chart of Typefaces” ). There is cer-
tainly enough text ability to produce short captions
and headings, but MacPaint doesn’t have the sophis-
tication of a full-scale word processing program such
as MacWrite. Words can be written directly onto the
screen at the insertion point. However, the program
doesn’t provide any word-wrap feature, so unless you
see that your text is going off the screen and press Re-
turn, it will wind up off the “page.”
You can also write text on the NotePad or in a
MacWrite document, and then cut and paste it into a
MacPaint document. Any text within a MacPaint doc-
ument can be enhanced just like any other part of a
drawing. Words can be stretched, copied, moved, and
manipulated in the marquee (see Figure 13).
If you type text over a pattern (or move it over a
pattern with the marquee), it will be surrounded by a
white border. To place letters directly on a pattern
without the surrounding white space, first type some
text on a blank section of the screen. Then encircle it
56
Volume 1, Number 1
one to shoot particular images, as well as a
whole collection of disks containing im-
ages in the public domain. You could make
a copy of the original image, and then
change the copied image to suit your
needs on a working disk with MacPaint. ”
Before joining Apple, Bill studied neu-
rochemistry, investigating “thought on a
molecular level,” in tandem with the visual
arts. “I don’t see code as what I do. I try to
make aesthetic definitions of it. Like a
sculptor using clay, a programmer has to
be familiar enough with the code to shape
it, to make it do a lot of things elegantly and
simply. That’s the art of it.”
And what does he think of the Mac?
“I like to look at the Mac in terms of
the American automobile industry. Our
Apple II was like Ford’s Model T: the first
simple, cheap, effective, but primitive
mass-market vehicle. After studying the
market, refining the technology, and im-
proving the package. Ford brought out the
Model A — the second great mass-market
car. I think the Macintosh is Apple’s
Model A.”
with the lasso and drag it to the desired position. (A
minor aesthetic drawback is that the hollow parts of
letters such as d and e are filled with white, rather than
with the underlying pattern.)
Pages and Screens
The MacPaint screen represents about one third
of a standard SVi- by 11-inch sheet of paper, which is
the frame for the entire drawing. To display the whole
page, you can either select the Show Page option in
the Goodies menu or double-click on the hand icon.
Either way, you are rewarded by a representation of the
whole page, with a dotted box enclosing the portion of
your drawing currently on the screen (see Figure 14).
You can change the screen selection by dragging the
dotted box to another part of the page or by dragging
the image around the page so that a different part of it
remains within the box (this method erases every-
thing that you drag off the edge of the Show Page,
however).
The Hand
Hand in hand with the Show Page option comes
one of the most useful of all the screen effects: the
hand, which enables you to scroll the page, bring-
ing different parts of the full drawing under scrutiny.
The hand slides the page around like a transparency
under an overhead projector to reveal various parts of
the whole drawing. You can quickly and easily reposi-
tion the drawing without going through the longer
Show Page process.
It would be useful if your drawing displayed itself
immediately as you moved the hand, but you must
drag the page to where you think you want to go,
release the mouse button, and wait for the screen
to fill in.
Macworld 57
^ Review
Keystroke Combinations
Although it takes some practice, developing
facility with the MacPaint tools offers great rewards.
When the tools are combined with various constraint
and shortcut keys, a number of possibilities leap out at
you from the screen. You must press these keys before
you hold down the mouse button and start to move the
mouse. A brief guide to these keystroke combinations
can be found in the Short Cuts option in the Goodies
menu (see Figure 15).
You can copy an image at various points on the
screen by selecting something, then holding down the
(Command) key and dragging the copied image to
another spot; the original is still there, and each time
you click a new imprint is made. You can smear the im-
Figure 8
The eraser works like a chalkboard eraser; however, the shape
of the eraser is unwieldy if you need to erase a small section
of a detailed drawing.
age, displaying one copy after another, by selecting an
object and then holding down both the §€ and Option
keys. And you can vary the spacing of the smeared
copies, either by changing the speed with which you
drag the pointer across the screen (faster makes them
farther apart) or by selecting a different border palette
option (the thinner the line, the closer the images).
An interesting set of operations comes into play
when you use the Option key alone with a selection.
This procedure enables you to stretch the selected im-
age either vertically or horizontally when you drag the
mouse. The result looks like a drawing on taffy, the
Figure 9
The Fat Bits feature allows you to clean up your drawings at
the single-dot level.
^ 4 File Edit Goodies Font FontSize Style
Figure 10
You can modify the dot-by-dot image of any pattern in the pat-
tern edit window.
58 Volume 1, Number 1
patterns and proportions stretched to new, and fre-
quently bizarre, combinations. If you hold down the
Shift key in addition to the Option key, you’ll produce
a stretched picture that stays roughly in proportion. An
interesting exercise is to take a patterned image and
then stretch it to watch the shifting relationships be-
tween the elements as the size changes. You can also
“scroll” text through the various fonts and font sizes in
a MacPaint document by using keystroke
combinations.
Many of these keyboard controls also work with
the series of geometric shapes that occupy the lower
half of the tool palette. A circle, rectangle, or rounded-
corner rectangle will normally be displayed in a
skewed perspective as it appears on the screen. Hold-
^ 4 File Edit Goodies Font FontSize Style
Figure 11
The selection rectangle, or marquee, allows you to select part
of the drawing so that you can move, copy, or manipulate the
selected area.
Figure 12
The lasso has a similar function to the marquee hut includes
only the object within the selected area, not the surrounding
background.
ing down the Shift key as the image is generated will
yield perfectly proportioned geometric shapes. Using
the Shift key with the hand will limit motion to the
vertical or horizontal, and using it with the paint-
brush, spray can, pencil, and eraser will enforce the
same 90-degree limits.
iniac Planets
ifc File Edit Goodies Font FontSize
3
mac Planets
iliac: Planets
Figure 13
Text written or pasted into a MacPaint document can also he
enhanced.
Figure 14
The Show Page option displays a representation of the entire
8^2- by 11 -inch page.
Macworld
59
^ Review
Graphic Design with the Mac
Bruce Charonnat
The computer age may be upon us, but
magazines are still produced largely by
hand. Many of the tools used in the graphic
arts have not changed appreciably in de-
cades. Lines are drawn with pens, ink, and
straight edges. Shapes such as circles and
squares are drawn using compasses, plastic
templates, and triangles. Pieces of paper
are held in place using rubber cement or
wax. Mistakes are rarely forgiven; they gen-
erally require that you start over, whatever
the task.
The Macintosh renders these tools
and methods obsolete and will profoundly
affect the graphic arts industry. While
other machines equal or exceed the Mac s
capabilities, they are many times as expen-
Never before has
a computer lent itself
so well to creating the
look of a magazine.
sive and offer neither the Mac’s portability
nor its ease of use. The Mac brings com-
puter-aided design and layout skills to indi-
viduals and small publishing groups at an
affordable price; it is the first truly personal
graphic arts machine, and as such the Mac
will flourish.
Macworld will reflect and utilize the
capabilities of the Mac. Much of what you’ll
see in the pages of this magazine will be
generated by the MacPaint program. This
is a unique situation — never before has a
computer lent itself so well to creating the
look of a magazine.
The Mac can draw lines and rules in a
number of widths, allowing us to draw the
borders around columns. We use the Mac-
Paint paintbrush in conjunction with the
Shift key to create perfectly straight lines to
draw these borders. Other boxes enclosing
text are created using the spray can-Shift
key combination.
The large geometric shapes on the
first page of each article are created with
MacPaint, using the FatBits option for any
necessary clean-up work. When all the
shapes for an article are ready, we choose a
MacPaint pattern or design a new one and
use the paint bucket to fill in the shapes.
The technical diagrams, flowcharts, and
mechanical illustrations in Macworld are
also created on the Mac by our crew of de-
signers, using a variety ol MacPaint tools.
The spray can, for example, is often used to
shade objects and render a three-dimen-
sional effect, and the Grid option helps
align different parts of a drawing.
Combining text with artwork is an-
other Mac feature that we often use. Parts
in mechanical drawings can be identified,
instructions typed directly into flowchart
boxes, and diagrams labeled in a variety of
type sizes and styles. Before the Mac, this
text had to be typeset separately and posi-
tioned in the illustration by hand. Now we
can create the entire image at once.
We hope to show the Mac’s creative
side at its best in the artwork used to illus-
trate Macworld. With the advent of the
Mac, the field of computer-generated art
will open up to thousands of artists with-
out previous computer experience. Mac-
world intends to serve as a forum for this
expanding field, and we look forward to
bringing you innovative Mac artwork each
month.
AAAAAAAAAA Bruce Charonnat
is the Art Director q/'Macworld.
60 Volume 1, Number 1
V^-
File 1
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1
^ 1
^ 1
□
■ 1
0
• 1
0
^ 1
0
d
Goodies
Font FontSize Style
Mac Painting
Option! 36 I Multiple Copies
Option} Line/ Border Pattern
Option} ^ Scroll FatBits
|36 I ^ Enter/ Leave FatBits
Change Font Size
|36 } [Shift I 3~} Change Font
Double
Click
Select Window
Show Page
Brush Shape
FatBits
Erase Window
Edit Pattern
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Figure 15
The Short Cuts option from the Goodies menu provides a guide to the keystroke combinations and their functions.
The Overall Picture
K MacPaint drawing, and any operations per-
formed on that drawing, can have either the loose
quality of a freehand sketch or the precise hard edge
of an engineer’s or draftsman’s work. At the touch of
an icon, a wide array of graphics and design capabili-
ties become possible. It’s hard to predict what effect
this machine will have on architects, art directors, en-
gineers, and artists. But for the first time an extremely
sophisticated drawing program is available at a very
reasonable cost, and accessible to almost anyone. Com-
pared to the more expensive CAD/CAM (computer-
aided design/manufacturing) programs available on
other personal computers, MacPaint is much more
usable, useful, and fun. It opens doors to people who
could never before create art because they didn’t have
the “talent.”
At the same time, for all its scope MacPaint is not
a program without problems. For instance, it is very
frustrating to have no full-page drawing capabilities.
This means that it is impossible to draw a circle larger
than one drawing screen (about one third of a page.)
Furthermore, at present the program lacks the three-
dimensional drawing aids essential in the design of
tools and buildings. It would also be helpful to be able
to rotate a drawing or a section of a drawing (or, for
that matter, a line of text) in degrees or increments,
not just the right-angle turns currently possible.
But in light of the complexity that MacPaint al-
ready has, all of that can’t be far away. It will be inter-
esting to see how the professional art world reacts to
the program. I suspect, considering the howls of pro-
test that always greet the new, that those with the most
vested in the status quo will be the most critical. After
all, if you’ve spent ten years setting yourself up as an
expert draftsman, you’re not going to enjoy the idea of
a horde of schoolkids, secretaries, and stockbrokers
being able to do it better than you can, and in less
time. The reality, of course, is that many talented artists
will flock to the Mac with its MacPaint program. One
can hardly imagine the legacy of images that this pro-
gram will produce, and I for one can hardly wait.
AAAAAAAAAA
MacPaint
Apple Computer, Inc.
20525 Mariani Ave.
Cupertino, CA 95014
8001538-9696; in California
8001662-9238
List price: $195 including MacWrite
Macworld
61
Review; Word Processing
Word Processing’s
New Look
Andrew Fluegelman
The Macintosh represents
such a major event in com-
puting history that MacWrite,
the Mac's native word process-
ing program, must he viewed
from two vantage points —
one that reveals a close-up
look at MacWrite ’s amazing
capabilities and another that
views the program and the
Mac from a more global
perspective.
Your opinion oi MacWrite is likely to de-
pend on whether you’ve ever used a com-
puter for writing. If the Mac and MacWrite
are your first computer writing tools, you
might assume that all word processing sys-
tems let people recast sentences and para-
graphs in various type styles, sizes, and
fonts; change margins on the fly; see for-
mat changes instantaneously; and print ex-
actly what appears on the screen at the
click of a button.
On the other hand, if you’ve been
using word processing programs on an Ap-
ple II, Osborne, Kaypro, IBM Personal
Computer, or another computer, Mac-
Writes abilities will probably impress you
as electronic writing magic the likes of
which you’ve never seen.
The Interface Be with You
Like all Mac applications, MacWrite s
foundation is the Macintosh user interface
(see “The Mac Way” in “A Tour of the Mac
Desktop”). The overall design and basic
concepts of the program are similar to
those of other Mac programs. Once you
have your hand on the mouse, ready to
move the pointer, you’re in control of every
word processing function in the program.
In MacWrite, the pointer takes the
form of an I-beam shape within the text
area. One click of the mouse button sets
the insertion point at the location of the
pointer, represented on the screen by a
flashing vertical line. The insertion point
determines where new text will appear as
it is typed (see Figure 1).
Portions of text can be selected by
positioning the I-beam pointer, holding
down the mouse button, dragging the
pointer over a portion of text, and releas-
ing the mouse button. Double-clicking the
mouse button selects a whole word. Drag-
ging the pointer down the left margin se-
lects larger portions of text. As text is
selected, it appears highlighted on the
screen (see Figure 2). You can scroll up or
down the text using the scroll bar on the
right edge of the text window. The dimen-
sions of the window can be altered using
the size box, and the window itself can be
dragged and moved on the screen.
Manipulating text within a document
used to account for as many as half of the
keystroke commands required to operate a
word processing program with proficiency.
MacWrite reduces those commands to a
few simple skills using the mouse — skills
that you probably learned on the Mac even
before you tried using MacWrite. Other
MacWrite functions are accessible through
six pull-down menus listed in the menu bar
at the top of the screen. After playing with
the Mac for five minutes, you know how to
use those commands.
As with other Mac programs, many of
the features and operational concepts are
intuitive; you almost know how to use Mac-
Write before you’ve tried it. Thanks to the
standard working environment provided
by the Mac’s user interface, writing with a
word processing program has never been
so easy.
62
Volume 1, Number 1
^ 4 File Edit Search Format Font Style
Figure 1
A MacWrite text window with an insertion point (after begunj and an I-heam pointer revolution)
Which Format Rules?
MacWrite is not distinguished from
other word processing programs just by
ease of use. It can perform some flashy
screen formatting feats, all of which are
controlled by the MacWrite ruler system.
At the top of each document window, Mac-
Write displays a ruler that controls five for-
matting conventions: margins, indentation,
tabs, line spacing, and justification (see
Figure 3).
You can adjust text to fit within your
chosen margins by positioning two black
triangles (markers) along the ruler. In
keeping with the Macintosh style of opera-
tion, you don’t specify the margins with a
command — you actually move the mark-
ers along the ruler by dragging them with
the mouse. Whenever the margin markers
are moved, all text below the ruler is auto-
matically readjusted to the new settings.
This is a good example of the type of fea-
ture that new Mac users may take in stride,
while computer veterans let out cool
whistles.
A small arrow-shaped marker in the
ruler governs the location of each para-
graph indentation. You can also “outdent”
paragraphs, which means that the body of
the paragraph is indented after the first
line. All indentation changes are reflected
immediately on the screen.
Tabs are set in the same manner. Each
new document comes with a tab marker
set at the 5-inch mark on the ruler. You can
reposition the marker by dragging it along
the ruler; additional tabs can be set by
dragging them out of the tab well (a box
on the lower-left side of the ruler) and
positioning them along the ruler. Decimal
tabs are also provided to position typed
numbers with the decimal points aligned.
Three line-spacing options are avail-
able: single, double, and line-and-a-half
spacing. You select them by clicking one of
three appropriate icons in the ruler bar,
and the new spacing is immediately re-
flected on the screen. The meaning of
these three icons is so obvious that you can
ask new users to “choose double spacing,”
and they’ll probably get it right on the
first try.
Four other icons let you format text as
left-justified, centered, right-justified, or
full-justified, which makes both left and
right margins even by adding letter spaces
within each line. Again, you see your
changes immediately reflected on the
screen.
Macworld
63
^ Review
Th^MacWrite formatting features let
you experiment interactively with the way
your text fills the page. If you want to pro-
duce a one-page memo and find that you
have three lines too many to fit on the
page, just move the margin markers out a
bit until the text fits. You can also reformat
the memo to see what it looks like double-
spaced, indented, or centered.
If you want to change formats in the
middle of a document, you insert another
ruler and designate new settings (see Fig-
ure 4). Ruler settings can also be copied
from one part of a document to another.
You can insert new rulers in the middle of
a page or even in the middle of a para-
graph, changing margins, spacing, and jus-
tification with a click. As you’d expect.
Figure 2
The word revolution
selected
Figure 3
A MacWrite ruler show-
ing margins at 1^/j
and 6 inches, indenta-
tion at 2 inches, single
spacing, and left
justification.
inserting a new ruler and changing the for-
mat settings instantly reformats the text be-
low it.
These formatting features wilj have a
profound effect on how you view word
processing. You can control the formatting
process so responsively that you won’t
think of your text as a static collection of
characters and spaces. Suddenly, it’s a fluid
body of writing that can be shaped in-
stantly to your specifications. Few writers
have ever had such control over the look of
their work.
The Macintosh Style
Another innovative feature in Mac-
Write is the system of specifying type
styles, sizes, and fonts. At any point you can
select Style from the menu bar and choose
a typographic enhancement from among
plain text, bold, italic, underlined, outlined,
or shadow. You can mix these effects to
produce bold italic underlined shadow
text, or, if you’re prone to hyperbole, bold
italic underlined outlined shadow text. The
Style menu also provides for type sizes
ranging from 9- to 72-point type. Make that
18-point bold italic underlined outlined
shadow text (see Figure 5).
^ 4 File Edit Search Format Font Style
Mac LUriting
The current common wisdom accepts that computers
have revolutionized the craft of writing. A half hour of
creating words with the Macintosh will convince you,
however, that the real]Q|^Q|^ in writing has only just
begun.
2
Q
^ 4 File Edit Search Format . Font Style
Mac LUriting
O
rx...i...x...l...x...i...i...l.rx...i...x...l...x...
..1.5..
‘A-
The current common wisdom accepts that
computers have revolutionized the craft of writing. A
half hour of creating words with the Macintosh will
convince you, however, that the real revolution in J
writing has only just begun.
Up to now, word processors — for all their
editing, searching, sorting, and paginating power —
have remained greatly glorified electronic typewriters.
But with the arrival of Macintosh, the scope of
computer writing skills is no longer confined to
stringing characters together. The power to control
typography and format has been put directly in the
hands of every writer. The art of writing has never
been so dramatically changed since Gutenberg.
Q
64
Volume 1, Number 1
Whatever styles are set define the ap-
pearance of text subsequently typed. But
you can also change existing text by select-
ing any portion of a document, from a sin-
gle character to the entire body of text, and
making a selection from the Style menu. If
you’re already anticipating that these type
changes are reflected automatically on the
screen, you’re becoming a convert to the
Mac style of word processing.
The type possibilities may extend be-
yond your expectations. You can specify
different type styles, fonts, and sizes within
^ ^ File Edit Search Format Font
the same line (see Figure 6). And when you
later insert text in your document, the in-
serted text automatically appears in the
specified style.
To be fair, all this praise should not be
directed to MacWrite. These typographic
acrobatics are provided courtesy of the
Mac’s resident Font Manager — routines
that reside within the computer’s perma-
nent memory (ROM). Those font manipula-
tions are therefore equally available to all
other Mac applications. They will become
Style
so much a part of the Mac style of comput-
ing that we will eventually come to expect
them from almost any program that runs
on the Mac.
The Bit of Difference
The Mac and MacWrite can do all
these wonderful things because they treat
writing as graphics rather than as just a
string of characters. The letter a is not just
the first letter of the alphabet; it’s a 12-point
plain New York a, a 10-point bold Athens a,
a 24-point italic Venice a, or whatever com-
bination of variables you choose. MacWrite
“knows” this, and “tells” the Mac Font Man-
ager to “tell” the screen to display a 10-
point bold Athens a, for example (see
“Chart of Type Fonts”).
Figure 4
A MacWrite ruler with
margins set at 2 and 5
^/4 inches, indentation
at 2 V 4 inches, line-
and-a-half spacing,
and full justification.
Mac UJriting
The current common wisdom accepts that
computers have revolutionized the craft of
writing. A half hour of creating words with
the Macintosh will convince you, however,
that the real revolution in writing has only
just begun.
Up to now, word processors — for all their
editing, searching, sorting, and paginating
power — have remained greatly glorified
2
Q
ik File
Edit Search Format Font]
Mac LUr
The current common wisdon
have revolutionized the craft of wr
creating words with the Macintost
however, that the real
has only just begun.
Up to now, word processors
searching, sorting, and paginating ]
greatly glorified electronic typewr
arrival of Macintosh, the scope of c
Plain Tent
>/^Bold
✓ /ta//c
✓Underline
</0)(DQDDm@
9 Point
12 Point
14 Point
s/1 8 Point
24 Point ^
36 Point
48 Point
72 Point
im cue
is no longer confined to stringing c:
power to control typography and format has been put
directly in the hands of every writer. The art of writing
has never been so dramatically changed since Gutenberg.
Figure 5
MacWrite ’5 Style menu,
with the word revolu-
tion set in 18-point
bold italic underlined
outlined shadow text
Macworld
65
^ Review
The screen can display the letter in
this form because the computer has con-
trol of each of the 175,104 dots that make
up the total image on the screen. The Mac
screen is bit-mapped, meaning each of
those dots is controlled in the Mac s mem-
ory. Thanks to the Mac’s ability to display
text in bits, Qwevy MacWrite writer has
been given the power to be his or her own
typographer and graphic designer.
The Limit
Now for a dose of reality. Based on the
introductory state of the Mac, each Mac-
Write document is limited to about 27,000
characters, or about 5000 words, which is
roughly the length of this review It’s about
20 double-spaced pages in 12-point type.
That’s certainly more than enough space to
write your next office report or a long,
chatty letter, but you might find yourself
running out of space just as you’re keying
in the climactic ending of your short story.
The immediate reason for this docu-
ment size limit is that a good chunk of the
Mac’s random-access memory (RAM) is
taken up by the programs that control the
Mac’s desktop and the MacWrite program
itself The remaining RAM is what you have
available for your document.
The real limitation, however, is the
fact that MacWrite holds the entire docu-
ment in memory while it is being worked
on. There are other methods by which
word processing programs handle docu-
ments, such as by writing portions of the
document back to disk when necessary.
This method permits a document length
limited only by disk storage space. In com-
puter parlance, such a storage system is
said to be disk-resident, as opposed to the
memory-resident system that MacWrite
uses.
If you’ve got a lengthy writing project
and can’t manage to chop your material
into 5000-word chapters, two solutions to
this memory-bound limitation are possible.
One is to wait until more memory be-
comes available for the Mac. If a Mac had
512,000 bytes of memory installed, the
maximum MacWrite document would the-
oretically be about 400,000 characters,
which is the size of a short novel. But that
might be too long a wait for your immedi-
ate writing needs.
The second solution is to wait until a
word processing program is introduced for
the Mac that uses a disk-resident document
system. Several such programs are under
development and forthcoming. By the
time you read this, you might not have to
wait at all.
Old Traditions
Now that you’ve been wowed by Mac-
Writes features and have come to terms
with its Achilles’ heel, how well does it per-
form the standard operations that most
word processing programs provide? The
following is a brief rundown of some of the
essentials.
Insert and overwrite. All text is in-
serted in the document as it is typed at the
insertion point. You cannot overwrite char-
acters — that is, type characters in place of
existing ones. Limiting MacWrite in this
Figure 6
A variety q/* MacWrite
type styles and fonts in
a single document
^ 4 File Edit Search Format Font Style
The current coivimon wisdom W&S/gfiQ
that COinpUtSrS have revoCutlonizccC the
craft of A of
creating words with the Macintosh i
will convince you, however, that the real
revolution in writing has onl y j ust be g un .
Up to now, word processors — for all their
editing, searching, sorting, and paginating
power — have remained greatly glorified
electronic typewriters. But with the arrival
of Macintosh, the scope of computer writing
skills is no longer confined to stringing
66
Volume 1, Number 1
way is a wise choice, given the general
Macintosh edict that application programs
should not place users in different modes
of operation.
Backspace. The Backspace key moves
the insertion point one character to the left
while deleting the character to the left; in
other words, it is a destructive backspace.
Seasoned writers and poor typists proba-
bly use this key more than any other.
Delete. The MacWrite program
provides three ways to delete text. The
Backspace key deletes destructively as de-
scribed above. You can also delete by
selecting a portion of text and choosing
Cut from the Edit menu. The cut text
then resides in the Clipboard, ready for
further use.
The third deletion technique is the
most innovative and also the most useful. If
you select a portion of text and start typing
new text, the selected text will be deleted
and the new text inserted as you type, all
in one automatic operation. It’s the hand-
iest way to make a spot correction. Pressing
the Backspace key when text has been se-
lected deletes that text without cutting it to
the Clipboard.
Move and copy. Moving a block of
text in MacWrite is accomplished by select-
ing the text, cutting it to the Clipboard via
the Edit menu, choosing a new insertion
point, and then pasting the text from the
Clipboard into the document (see Figure
7). As an alternative, text can be copied to
the Clipboard, leaving the original text in
place and making the Clipboard text
available for pasting elsewhere in the
document.
This moving operation is fairly effi-
cient in that it can be accomplished entirely
with the mouse, but it does require that
you move from the text area to the menu
bar and back again twice. An alternative
method that uses the (Command) key is
a very efficient way to make these moves
(see “Keyboard Control”).
Search and replace. The Search op-
tion on the MacWrite menu bar has com-
mands for finding a specified string of
characters and either selectively or
globally changing the “find” string to an-
other string (see Figure 8). Both functions
ignore case; that is, if you are searching for
Mac, you will find Mac, mac, Macys, and
supremacy.
MacWrite s search and replace func-
tion is somewhat limited. Other word pro-
cessing programs allow you to specify
whether you want to ignore case. A further
refinement is whether the replace string is
inserted in a “case-sensitive” manner. In
other words, if you are finding Mac and
^ * File!
Search Format Font Style
Itm'i Undo
cut .
Copy ^
Paste
8§C 1
§§U I
1 Show Clipboard 1
o
er. that the real revolution in writ me; has only just
Up to now, word processors — for all their editing,
searching, sorting, and paginating power — have remained
greatly glorified electronic typewriters. But with the
arrival of Macintosh, the scope of computer writing skills
is no longer confined to stringing characters together. The
power to control typography and format has been put
directly in the hands of every writer. The art of writing
has never been so dramatically changed since Gutenberg.
Q
changing it to Sack, both Mac and mac
will be changed to Sack and sack respec-
tively. A flexible range of search and re-
place options is the sort of detail that in
the traditional word processing world
distinguishes a good program from a
great one.
Bells and Whistles
The word processing world is filled
with other fancy features. Some programs
let you store different formats for memos,
letters, and outlines and implement them
with a single command; edit several docu-
ments at once using multiple windows;
create footnotes, tables of contents, and in-
dexes automatically; or define certain key-
strokes to type whole words, phrases, or
sentences or to define a series of program
commands into “macro” commands. Some
programs even check your grammar and
spelling. MacWrite does not offer any of
these extra treats.
MacWrite does offer one rare and wel-
come feature, however. The Undo com-
mand in the Edit menu always gives you
the option of undoing your last action.
Thus, you can undo deletions, moves, style
changes, and even the last text typed as an
insertion. It’s like having a word process-
ing seatbelt, only more effective, because
you’re always wearing it and it can take you
back in time, before the accident occurred.
What’s more, in classic Macintosh
style, the text of the Undo command
changes to reflect your last action. For ex-
ample, if you are undoing a Cut command,
the prompt will say Undo Cut. If you
choose Undo twice in succession, the sec-
ond time the prompt will say Redo Cut and
undo your previous undo. It’s a powerful
dose of Mac magic.
Figure 7
Choosing the Cut com-
mand from the Edit
menu to cut selected
text into the Clipboard
Macworld 67
M Review
Heads and Tails
Like many traditional word processing
programs, MacWrite provides the ability to
specify headers and footers — text that ap-
pears at the top or bottom of each page of
the document. In some respects, these fea-
tures are powerfully implemented. You can
include several lines of text in both the
header and footer, and you can set the type
style, size, and even the font for the head-
ers and footers independently of the main
text. The headers and footers are specified
in separate windows, but their effect is dis-
played as part of the text on the screen
(see Figures 9 and 10).
There are some problems with this
feature, however. The header and footer
windows provide three icons that can be
dragged into the text for setting the page
number, date, and time. Unfortunately,
these icons do not display their effects in
the header window — you have to switch to
the text window to see the page, date, or
time; thus, aligning and editing them cor-
rectly can be difficult (see “Tips for Mac
Writers” for some techniques to alleviate
this problem).
Every MacWrite
writer has been given
the power to be his or
her own typographer
and graphic designer
The headers and footers also control
the top and bottom margins of each page.
If you want to create a larger top margin
but don’t want any header text, you have to
open the header window and insert one or
more Returns. This technique produces no
discernible effect on the header screen, so
you have to guess what effect you’re pro-
ducing. MacWrite will not let you insert
more than seven lines in a header or
footer. If you want more than seven lines’
worth of top margin, you have to select
line-and-a-half or double spacing on the
separate header/footer ruler before you en-
ter the invisible Returns or specify a differ-
Keyboard Control
A debate has raged for years in
word processing circles con-
cerning proper use of the key-
board. One school, consisting
mostly of writers who struggle
with the typewriter keyboard
using four fingers at best, has
cried out for special function
keys that could be dedicated to
specific, convenient word pro-
cessing commands.
The other school, which
seems to be made up entirely
of touch-typists who generally
type faster than the national
speed limit, wants to keep ten
fingers on the keyboard as
much as possible.
The Mac has no function
keys, and it’s probably a good
thing. Once you deal with more
than 107 of them and their vari-
ous permutations, remember-
ing which convenience each
key provides becomes a chore.
All the Mac’s commands are ac-
cessible via the mouse pointer
and “soft” checklists, buttons,
and boxes that appear on the
screen when requested or
when the situation warrants.
It’s a much more sane and prac-
tical system.
Nevertheless, there will
surely be some proficient typ-
ists among the ranks of Mac
users, and they will probably
prefer to remain keyboard
bound while they write. To ac-
commodate them, MacWrite
provides the ability to invoke
some commands directly from
the keyboard, using the Com-
mand key §§ in conjunction
with an alphabetic key. These
keyboard alternatives are con-
veniently listed next to the
equivalent commands in the
menus.
Two systems of keyboard al-
ternatives are provided within
the MacWrite program. One
permits you to select type
styles by holding down the §§
key and pressing p, b, i, u, o, or
s for plain, bold, italic, under-
lined, outlined, and shadow
text, respectively. Using this
method is very practical; for in-
stance, you can italicize a word
and return to plain text without
having to break your ke\^board
flow.
Other keyboard alternatives
permit you to Undo the last ac-
tion by pressing §§ -z. Cut se-
lected text to the Clipboard
using -x. Copy using -c,
and Paste with ^ -v.
If the mnemonics of those
letters escape you, you’ll notice
that the z, x, c, and v keys oc-
cupy the bottom row of the
keyboard. Thus, you can easily
invoke these four §€ -key op-
tions with one hand. It’s a tech-
nique that Mac writers should
quickly develop, because it cuts
down on mouse activity and
makes text manipulation more
efficient.
68 Volume 1, Number 1
^ 4k File Edit Se<*r<h Format Foot
half hour of creating words with the Mac will convince
you, however, that the real revolution in writing has
only just begun.
Up to now, word processors — for all their
editing, searching, sorting, and paginating power —
have remained greatly glorified electronic typewriters.
But with the arrival of the scope of
computer writing skills is no longer confined to
stringing characters together. The power to control
typography and format has been put directly in the
hands of every writer The art of writing has never
been so dramatically changed since Gutenberg.
a
Figure 8
The MacWrite Search/ Chanf^e menu
ent type size for the header. This is a level
of abstraction that few users will enjoy
mastering.
Many traditional word processing pro-
grams provide more header and footer op-
tions, such as positioning the header or
footer on the right or left depending on
whether the page number is odd or even.
This feature is handy for reports duplicated
by printing on both sides of the page. Most
programs permit you to specify different
header text midway in a document. Mac-
Write does not, although it does let you
specify a page as a “title page," which
maintains the header spacing but does not
print the header text.
Blind Formatting
Some of the same difficulties encoun-
tered in formatting headers occur when
you format the main text. All of the format-
ting effects are based on the position of Re-
turns in the text and the points at which
type styles change. So long as you keep the
text in orderly paragraphs and make ra-
tional typographic choices, MacWrite will
present a fairly clear picture, and what you
see is in fact what you get.
You can confuse \x)ur document, how-
ever, by mixing spaces with Returns and
type style changes; figuring out where you
have to insert or delete to make \^our text
bold instead of underlined or indented in-
stead of outdented can become very myste-
rious indeed. A welcome option would be a
menu choice that temporarily displays
where the formatting breaks occurred.
Another formatting reservation con-
cerns the ruler-like markers. While they do
make page formatting simpler than in al-
most any other word processing program
available, they can get in the way and be-
come ungainly if your document has sev-
eral format changes. (Rulers can be
optionally hidden.) Centering a line of text
in MacWrite is also rather cumbersome
(you have to insert a new ruler just for that
purpose).
Another format disappointment is that
the maximum width of a MacWrite docu-
ment is about 6!4 inches of text area — what
can be displayed in the MacWrite window.
It s not unusual for word processing pro-
grams to be able to scroll horizontally to
accommodate wide documents. There is a
further limitation: if you have reduced the
dimensions of the MacWrite text window,
you cannot scroll horizontally to see even
the 61^4-inch width. This limitation is a ma-
jor departure from the Macintosh user
interface.
Reading and Writing
Many word processing applications in-
volve mixing and merging different docu-
ments, often portions of standard text
called boilerplate. You can accomplish this
task in several ways with MacWrite, but the
program lacks the two features necessary
to do the job directly: the ability to read an-
other saved file into your document and
the ability to select a portion of text and
save it as a separate file on disk.
The easiest way to transfer portions of
text from one document to another with
MacWrite is to Cut or Copy a selection to
the Clipboard, save the existing file, open a
new document, and then Paste from the
Clipboard into the new document. This
process works, but would be very inconve-
nient if you needed to insert several docu-
ments into a text file or pull several
selections from text and save them as sepa-
rate documents. The File menu offers the
options of getting a copy of a document or
duplicating the current document by sav-
ing it with another name, but both of
those operations work onh^ on whole
documents.
The best way to do multiple document
reads and writes with MacWrite is to make
use of the Scrapbook, a feature supplied as
a desk accessory. You can place several se-
lections into the Scrapbook and then in-
sert them from the Scrapbook into new
documents. This procedure is somewhat
more efficient, but still requires two steps
to complete one operation (see Figure 11).
The Graphics Connection
MacWrite doesn’t quite measure up to
some of the traditional programs in the file
transfer department, but how many tradi-
tional word processing programs let \^ou
combine graphics with text? With Mac-
Write, MacPaint, and a little practice, you
can not only insert a drawing into your
document, you can change its size and pro-
portions while it’s on the page. Word pro-
cessors just aren’t supposed to be able to
have that capability.
Mao\'orld
69
^ Review
Figure 9
A header window
showing the page
number, date, and
time icons
Figure 10
The effect of the
header window set-
tings specified in
Figure 9
Printing
Printing a word processing document
has long been the writer s most dreaded
chore. The problem was that you could
never be really sure how the document
would print while you were producing it
on the screen; you had to connect a multi-
tude of printing commands and specifica-
tions with the document for it to print
correctly
Enter MacWrite. Choose Print from
the File menu, answer some questions
about page length and printing quality, and
watch your printer produce exactly what
^ A File Edit Search Format Font Style
MacWrite Examples page ^
m
S
up ro now, wora processors — lor an rneir
editing, searching, sorting, and paginating power --
have remained greatly glorified electronic typewriters.
But with the arrival of Macintosh, the scope of
computer writing skills is no longer confined to
stringing characters together. The power to control
typography and format has been put directly in the
hands of every writer. The art of writing has never
^ 4 File Edit Search Format Font Style
appeared on the screen (see Figure 12).
The only exception to this process is that if
you choose high resolution from the Print
menu, your printed document will look
even better than it did on the screen.
The printing features have some pecu-
liarities. The Print menu offers the options
of printing standard by 11-inch letter
size, legal size, and European size docu-
ments in a tall or wide format, but as noted
above, the MacWrite screen limits the text
portion of a document to a width of
inches.
The printing function also lacks one
feature that would have gone a long way to
ameliorate the document size limitation.
The ability to chain print separate docu-
ments into one long printed document is
not an uncommon word processing fea-
ture. If this feature were included as a Mac-
Write option, you could produce final
printed pieces of virtually any length with
minimal inconvenience.
70 Volume 1, Number 1
4 File Edit $e<niU fmnmt Vtmt
Mac liJriting
O
=r 1.=-=^
^ ^
^ -2
■ LL-«_M J ■ ■ _ I ■ ■■ — .J
=1—1=
— = scr aptSOOK i
Up
editing, s
have rem
But with
computer
stringing
typograp:
hands of <
been so d
The current common wisdom accepts that computers have
revolutionized the craft of writing. A half hour of creating words
with the Macintosh will convince you, however, that the real
revolution in writing has only just begun.
EE
33
I Cut] I Copy
Paste
[□ear] [Text 02 of 02]
The current common wisdom accepts that
2 ;
a
Figure 11
Pasting text to the
Scrapbook
T\vo Reviews
Now it may be more apparent why this
review is really two reviews. Compared to
the mundane functions of the word pro-
cessing programs that preceded it, Mac-
Write holds its own as a perfectly
serviceable, if somewhat limited, word
processing package. It’s an appropriate
program for beginners because of its sim-
plicity. Some features could have been bet-
ter designed, and many bells and whistles
exist in the word processing world that
MacWrite doesn’t pretend to offer.
But for new computer writers and
word processing veterans alike, MacWrite
also provides the first widely accessible
version of a revolutionary new style of
computer writing tool. It excels in the
areas of screen formatting and type selec-
tion. MacWrite does amazing things
effortlessly that most other programs can’t
even attempt. Without question, no word
processing program has ever offered so
much power with so much simplicity to
such a wide audience.
This is why every writer, regardless of
his or her computer experience, should be
thrilled by MacWrite. The Macintosh is
Figure 12
The File/ Print menu
going to change the way we think about
written communication. MacWrite is the
first popular program to show us why
and how.
AAAAAAAAAA
MacWrite
Apple Computer, Inc.
20525 Mariani Ave.
Cupertino, CA 95014
800/538-9696; in California
800 / 662-9238
List price: $195 including MacPaint
Macworld 71
M Review: Spreadsheets
The Mac teams up with an im
proved version of Microsoft's
venerable electronic spread-
sheet program.
Multiplan Meets the Mac
Andrew T. Williams
Last year Microsoft’s Multiplan was named
“Software of the Year” by InfoWorld, a
widely read and respected news weekly for
microcomputer users. The honor was well
deserved because Multiplan is a powerful
piece of software. This yezv Multiplan has
teamed up with the new kid on the block,
the flashy Macintosh. The result is defi-
nitely something to behold. Later in this re-
view, you’ll see exactly what this marriage
of technical innovation and tried and true
software means in terms of specific fea-
tures. But for those users who are new to
computers, here’s a brief introduction to
the world of electronic spreadsheets.
Electronic Spreadsheets
To understand an electronic spread-
sheet, you should begin with its more fa-
miliar ancestor, the manual spreadsheet.
Manual spreadsheets (sometimes called
worksheets or accountant’s pads) are com-
mon tools used in business analysis. They
can be large, complicated affairs containing
hundreds of interrelated entries, or they
can be as simple and straightforward as a
cash register receipt from the local super-
market.
Accountants use spreadsheets to keep
the books, managers use them to prepare
budgets and sales projections, and financial
analysts use them to organize their analy-
ses. Everyone uses them to keep records.
An electronic spreadsheet adds the
power of a microcomputer to the frame-
work of the manual spreadsheet. It gives
each spreadsheet the natural calculating
ability of the computer so that formulas
and functions can be entered into the cells
of the worksheet, instead of just the num-
bers and text available on a manual
spreadsheet.
Using an electronic spreadsheet, you
can construct tables that accurately model
the relationships between elements on the
spreadsheet and use the computer’s rapid
calculating powers to recalculate the work-
sheet whenever new information is en-
tered or existing information is changed.
To be sure, information is still arranged in
the cells of the familiar spreadsheet grid
Multiplan’s link-
ing feature allows you
to combine several
worksheets into a gi-
gantic workspace.
formed by the intersection of columns and
rows, but the size and power of the spread-
sheet is greatly expanded.
A 13-column by 30-row manual
spreadsheet has 390 cells, enough for 30
line items for twelve months plus a column
for the row headings. Multiplan, by con-
trast, has 16,065 cells arranged in 63 col-
umns and 256 rows. With Multiplan you
can do five-year projections by months or
fifteen-year projections by quarters. Multi-
plans linking feature allows you to com-
bine several worksheets into a gigantic
workspace.
72
Volume 1, Number 1
&
W%V.V.V.*.W.W.V.V."A%*li%%V.V.V.VA%V%S%%V.V.V.V.V.*.%W.V.V.V.W.V.V.V.V.V.%V.*.V.VAW.W.%S*.VAVAV.VA’.V.%V.V
HASING POWER OF THE DOLLAR
CONSUMER
HO'W MUCH YOU'D HAVE TO
; ■ EARN TO EARN
IN 1967 DOLLARS
PRICE
INDEX
1.247
1.127
1;058
0.86
0;621
0;406
1.348
(jfe $16,038.49
$17,746.2?
$1 8,90'
$23,25S
$32,206.1
$49,261.08
$57,471.26
= Review
4 File Edit Select Format Options Calculate
Figure 1
Sample Multiplan
spreadsheet docu-
menting the sad
decline of the pur-
chasing power of
the US. dollar.
More important than size alone is the
fact that Multiplan resides in the com-
puter’s memory. The Mac is very good at
keeping track of things, doing error-free
calculations, and letting you change the
appearance of the display
The speed oi 2 i Multiplan spreadsheet
calculation clearly manifests the power of
electronic spreadsheets. A simple example
is adding up a column of numbers. Multi-
plan has a function that does this in less
time than it takes to dot an i. You can
change a number in the list, and the pro-
gram will recalculate the total (along with
every other formula and function on the
worksheet) and display the new answers in
a flash.
“What If” analysis — changing a few
numbers to see what will happen to a bud-
get, a balance sheet, or any other table — is
an important financial analysis tool. It is
one of the tasks that Multiplan and other
electronic spreadsheet programs do best.
The results of a few simple changes that
may take hours of manual calculation (al-
ways subject to human error) are pre-
sented error-free by the computer in
seconds.
Another important feature of an elec-
tronic spreadsheet is its ability to insert or
delete space in the middle of an already
constructed table. Never again will you
have to use scissors and paste to remove an
unwanted row or column. Never again will
you need to resort to microscopic writing
to include a line item you missed or an
item someone suggested you consider. Fur-
thermore, every formula and function on
the worksheet adjusts automatically to ac-
commodate the new rows or columns.
Electronic spreadsheets, along with
word processing programs, are what keep
microcomputers from being merely expen-
sive toys. These programs give you great
control over two of humankind’s most es-
sential means of communication and analy-
sis: words and numbers.
Also, spreadsheets and word process-
ing programs do not require that you use
specific tools to solve problems in pre-
determined ways. Instead, they provide
two general types of electronic “black-
boards” and “chalk boxes.” These are gen-
eralized tools that let you decide how best
to solve your particular problems based on
your individual knowledge and creativity.
MacPlan
Multiplan is the first spreadsheet pro-
gram available for use on the Mac. But it is
such a different version of the well-known
product that those familiar with it might be
tempted to call it “MacPlan.” If you have
usoid Multiplan before, you’ll recognize
the program, but there are many new —
and worthwhile — things to learn. The uni-
form working environment of the Mac —
windows, icons, pull-down menus, and the
like — and the use of the mouse for cursor
control have important, positive effects on
the way Multiplan operates.
Figure 1 shows a typical Multiplan
window. It displays a table documenting
the sad decline of the purchasing power of
the US. dollar. The menu bar at the top of
the window lists the Multiplan menu titles:
Folder, Edit, Select, Format, Options, and
Calculate. Most of the program features are
selected by choosing items from one of the
menus. Each menu can be pulled down by
locating the pointer on the desired menu
title and pressing and holding down the
mouse button.
You can select items from the menu by
moving the pointer to the appropriate item
and releasing the mouse button. The
74 Volume 1, Number 1
4 File Edit Select I
Format
Options Calculate
1 2
1
PURCHASING
2
YEAR
1955
CONSG
PRK
INDI
1.2-
3
4
5
6
7
8
1960
i.i:
9
1965
1.05
ID
1970
0.8
1 1
1975
0.6:
12
1980
0.4C
13
1982, JUNE
o
CM
14
General
✓Dollar §€$
Percent §§7o
No Decimal
Decimal
Scientific
Bar Graph
Number Of Decimals...
Align Left
✓Align Center r '^>2
Align Aight §83
✓Commas
Column UJidth.
1 4 1 P®
—
to’
DO * ’
7777' I
Figure 2
Saynple Multiplan
menu. The checks op-
posite Dollar, Align
Center, and Commas
indicate that those
three formats control
the display of the num-
ber in the active cell.
checks opposite Dollar, Align Center, and
Commas in Figure 2 indicate that those
three formats control the display of the
number in the cell shown in black in the
body of the worksheet.
The line below the menu bar is the
formula bar. The left side of the formula
bar contains the address of the active, or
current, cell in the body of the worksheet.
In Figure 1, the active cell is at the intersec-
tion of row 13 and column 3. Hence, the ad-
dress of the active cell is R13C3. Each cell
on a Multiplan worksheet has a unique ad-
dress made up of the row number and col-
umn number of the cells location.
The active cell is the only cell in
which information can be placed or modi-
fied. It is displayed as black with a solid
white border, making it easy to spot. The
contents of the active cell are displayed on
the right side of the formula bar. In Figure
1, the active cell contains a formula
( = 20000/RC[-l]), even though it displays
the number $57,471.26 in the body of the
worksheet. The formula tells Multiplan
what it must do to find out how much you
would have needed to earn in June of 1982
to have the average purchasing power of
20,000 1967 dollars.
The denominator of the expression,
RC[-1], is horn Multiplan refers to cells
within formulas. It means, “Get the value
from the cell in this row (R), but one col-
umn to the left (C[-l]).” This type of cell
reference can become very complicated
when you are referring to ranges, and it is a
major reason Multiplans ability to assign
names to ranges is so essential.
The Mouse
One of the prominent features of the
Mac is the mouse. While you’ll need some
practice to get the right hand-eye coordi-
nation to move the pointer with the mouse,
the power and convenience it brings to
Multiplan are well worth the effort. (Some
commands can be implemented from the
keyboard. These key combinations, which
are listed next to the equivalent commands
in the menus, are convenient when you are
keying in data. )
The action controlled by the mouse
depends on the location of the pointer on
the screen. To help you distinguish the ac-
tions, the pointer changes shape as the ac-
tion changes. When the pointer is in the
menu bar, it is arrow shaped and can be
used to pull down menus. When the
pointer is in the body of the worksheet, it
is a cross and is used to activate cells. In
the formula bar the pointer is an I-beam
and indicates where editing will take place.
If you move the pointer to one of the
vertical lines that separate the column
numbers, the symbol changes to indicate
that you can change the column width by
dragging the boundary to the right or left.
(Column 3 in Figure 1 has been expanded
to accommodate the large column head-
ing.) When an action requires a few mo-
ments to complete, the pointer changes to
a wristwatch to indicate that you must wait.
While they do take some getting used
to, the context-sensitive symbols are an ex-
cellent visual guide to what will happen
when you work in different areas of the
Multiplan window The mouse is a conve-
nient way to choose options from a menu,
and can quickly accomplish such routine
tasks as selecting a range of cells, changing
column widths, or splitting the screen into
separate window panes.
Macworld 75
^ Review
Figure 3
Multiple windows
allow you to view
different sets of cells.
Scrolling the Worksheet
Only a small fraction of the Multiplan
worksheet appears in the grid in the lower
part of the screen in Figure 1. Although the
number of cells displayed depends on the
width of each column, usually fewer than
100 cells are visible on the screen at any
time. Actually you have plenty of room to
work with, since the worksheet in the
Mac’s memory has 16,065 cells.
The general procedure for making dif-
ferent cells appear on the screen is scroll-
ing the worksheet. This term refers to the
way the worksheet appears to wind and
unwind on the screen. Since you will use
scrolling frequently when you are con-
structing or using an electronic worksheet,
the way a program handles this function is
very important. One of the Mac’s greatest
strengths is that it performs these opera-
tions efficiently.
The easiest way to expose cells that
are just off the screen is to position the
pointer at the edge of the grid. Pressing
and holding the mouse button while you
move the pointer into the border causes
new rows or columns to appear.
If you want to view distant cells, the
Mac has some particularly efficient ways to
get you there. Multiplan uses the scroll
bars, scroll boxes, and scroll arrows that
are standard equipment on most Mac win-
dows (see ‘A Tour of the Mac Desktop” for
a detailed description of these features). By
using the pointer to position the scroll
boxes in the horizontal and vertical scroll
bars, you can quickh' and easily cause any
oi Multiplans 16,065 cells to appear on the
screen.
Window Bars
Another feature oi Multiplan is the
window bar This is the small black rec-
tangle at the top of the vertical scroll bar
and at the far left of the horizontal scroll
bar. You can position the pointer in a win-
dow bar, hold down the mouse button, and
drag the window bar along the scroll bar.
The screen will split into two windows at
the point where you release the mouse
button (see Figure 3).
Unlike a similar feature on other elec-
tronic spreadsheets, you cannot scroll all
windows independently. Windows above
one another must display the same col-
umns, and windows beside one another
must display the same rows. However, win-
dows on the diagonal can be scrolled inde-
pendently. You can view different sets of
cells in the upper-left and lower-right win-
dows. Thus, you can display an entry space
(a place where you enter parameters) in
the upper-left window and, at the same
time in the lower-right window, a set of far-
removed cells that form display output.
Selecting Cell Ranges
Many oi Multiplans built-in functions
and commands operate on all cells in a
group or range of cells. The SUM function
is an obvious example. It adds up the num-
bers in a range and displays the answer in
the cell containing the function. Another
example is the Format command, in which
all the cells in a range can be assigned the
Dollar format or aligned to the center of
the cell, for example.
To operate on a range of cells, the pro-
gram must provide ways to select the cells.
Multiplan gives you several ways to accom-
plish this task. In fact, there is nothing like
it on any other electronic spreadsheet pro-
gram. You can select an entire column or
row by positioning the pointer on a row or
column number and clicking the mouse
button. Like all selected ranges, the se-
lected row or column will appear in re-
verse video (white characters on a black
background).
Or you can position the pointer on the
first cell of the range, hold down the but-
ton, and drag the pointer to the opposite
corner of the desired area. The area may
76 Volume 1, Number 1
Select Format Options Calculate
R21C13 III
CPI
1
1
2
3
4
5
YE.
6
8
21
22
23
24
25
26
Select R Function
[ OK ] [ Cancel
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
Pl[]
REPTO
ROUND!]
ROUI[]
SIGN]]
SIN[]
SORT!)
STDEUll
O
SlSUM[]
'■^TRNlj
3
13
14
DOLLAR
CH YOU’D HAVE TO
rO EARN $20,000
1 967 DOLLARS
$16,038.49
$17 746
Figure 4
The Paste Function
command. You use the
scroll bar in the dialog
box to view the entire
list c/ Multiplan’s built-
in functions.
be a block of cells as well as a row or col-
umn of cells. If you drag the pointer into
one of the borders, the screen will scroll
and the selected area will expand until you
release the mouse button.
You can also select a block of cells by
using the Shift key in combination with the
mouse button. First, designate the cell at
one corner of the block by clicking the
cell. That cell is the active cell, and it ap-
pears in reverse video surrounded by a
solid white border. Next, move the pointer
to the cell at the opposite corner of the
block. Then press the Shift key and click
the mouse button. The entire block will be
selected, and the cells will be displayed in
reverse video.
This method of selecting a range of
cells works especially well when the op-
posite corner of the block is off the screen.
Just use the scroll bars to display the op-
posite corner on the screen and designate
the block by using the Shift key and the
mouse button. If you make a mistake, re-
position the pointer and Shift-click again.
The original cell will remain active to de-
fine the opposite corner of the block.
Another method for selecting a group
of cells uses the §€ key in combination
with the mouse button to randomly select
nonadjacent cells. Each time you click the
mouse button when the §§ key is pressed,
a cell is selected. If you hold down the
mouse button, you can drag the pointer
over a group of cells. If you hold down the
§§ key and the Shift key at the same time,
you can select a block of cells.
Any of these groups of cells can be
assigned a name and used in a built-in
function or a Multiplan command. Fur-
thermore, you can move through any
selected range by pressing the Enter key,
or back up through a range by using the
Shift-Enter key combination. The combi-
nation of the Enter key and Multiplans cell
selection options gives you a powerful
worksheet tool.
A word of caution. The Shift key and
the §€ key are disabled whenever the Caps
Lock key is engaged, li Multiplan isn’t let-
ting you use all of the selection features,
check to make sure the Caps Lock key is
not engaged.
Special Editing Commands
Multiplans Edit menu has several
special capabilities not found in other
spreadsheet programs. One particularly
useful feature is Undo. If you select the
Undo command, what you have just en-
tered will be undone. You can also click the
“stop sign” that appears in the formula bar
when you begin an entry. The stop sign
cancels a command, formula, or other
entry in mid-stride.
Two other convenient Edit commands
are Paste Function and Paste Name. Figure
4 shows what happens if you select the
Paste Function command from the Edit
menu. You are presented with a dialog box
listing all oi Multiplan's built-in functions.
You can use the scroll bar in the dialog box
to view the entire list. When you find the
function you want, you can select it by
You can protect
either a range of cells
or the entire worksheet
clicking the box in front of the formula.
The selected function appears in the for-
mula bar, ready for you to designate the
range of values on which it will operate.
The Paste Name command operates in
the same way. When you select it, you are
presented with a dialog box containing all
of the names you have created. You select
the one you need, and it is pasted into the
appropriate place.
The Fill Down command fills a range
with the contents of the first row, while the
Fill Right command fills a range with the
Macworld 77
^ Review
contents of the first column. To begin, you
must specify the range to be filled. K Multi-
plan range is easily seen, because ever\^
range is displayed in black as it is selected.
The Fill commands perform the same
function as the Replicate or Copy com-
mands found in traditional spreadsheet
programs. These commands are constantly
used to spread functions, labels, or data
from one cell or set of cells to the rest of
the worksheet. Using these commands
makes constructing a spreadsheet easy
and fast. In most situations, using Multi-
plans Fill commands is much easier than
using the Replicate or Copy commands of
other spreadsheet programs.
Protecting Worksheets
Multiplan can protect worksheets
from accidental changes. This feature can
save your valuable worksheets from your
clumsiness and careless mistakes. It can
also prevent your worksheet from being
damaged when your well-meaning as-
sistant decides to update it.
You can protect either a range of cells
(which may or may not be adjacent) or the
entire worksheet. If you protect the entire
worksheet, use the Unprotect option to
open up the cells into which data will be
entered.
Multiplan has several features that
make the protection option especially use-
ful. First, protected worksheets are dis-
played on the screen without the row and
column numbers and the dashed lines that
mark the cell boundaries. You immediately
know that you are working with a pro-
tected worksheet. Secondly, Multiplan
designates any unprotected cells by
underlining them so you can see exactly
which cells are available for data entry.
Multiplan goes the standard protec-
tion features one better by having you
assign a password to each protected
worksheet. Once a worksheet is protected,
only using the password can unprotect it,
so be sure to pick a password you’ll
remember.
Finally, you can move from one un-
protected cell to the next on a protected
worksheet by pressing the Enter key This
procedure makes it easy to update a pro-
tected worksheet. Simply type the data
for the active cell and press Enter. The
active cell then moves automatically to
the next unprotected cell, ready for your
next data entrv.
Linking and Naming
The Macintosh version oi Multiplan
carries over two features for which the
program has become famous: the ability to
link several worksheets and the use of En-
glish words, instead of row and column cell
references, as names for ranges.
The linking feature, from ^hich Mul-
tiplan gets its name, allows you to estab-
lish a connection between supporting and
dependent worksheets. Linking is the nat-
ural way to combine quarterly reports into
annual reports or tables of regional or divi-
sional sales figures.
The link between worksheets is ac-
complished by assigning a name to a cell or
range of cells you wish to link from one
worksheet to another. After you specify the
ranges, use the Copy command from the
Edit menu to establish the link. Once the
link has been established, the dependent
worksheet will copy the information from
the supporting worksheet each time the
dependent worksheet is loaded into the
Mac’s memory. If you want, you can break a
link with the Undo Copy command in the
Edit menu.
4k File Edit
Select Format Options Calculate
1
Figure 5
Figure 1 with the for-
mulas displayed. In
column 3, the name
CPI is used in place of
cell references in the
formulas.
78 Volume 1, Number 1
In addition to their use in linking
worksheets, named cells or ranges of cells
are convenient to use with all spreadsheet
functions. In Figure 5, the Consumer Price
Index in column 2 of the spreadsheet in
Figure 1 has been given the name “CPI.”
This name is used in place of cell refer-
ences in the formulas in column 3. The
formulas are much easier to read and
understand when CPI replaces the cell ref-
erence, RC[-1]. This procedure is even
more useful when a name replaces a range
of cells in a formula or built-in function.
You can use the Name option from the
Select menu to view all of the names you
have assigned and to see which cells are as-
signed to each name. The Paste Name com-
mand in the Edit menu allows you to paste
a name into a formula without having to re-
type the name.
Entering Data and Text
The Mac version oi Multiplan has a
good method for entering information into
worksheet cells. First, you use the pointer
to define the range into which you wish
to make your entries. After selecting the
range, you type your entry and press Enter.
The active cell, which is outlined in white,
will automatically move to the next cell in
the range.
You can skip cells by pressing Enter,
and you can return to cells in which you
have already entered information by simul-
taneously pressing the Shift and Enter keys.
This technique works with the Paste Func-
tion and Paste Name commands, as well as
with numbers, formulas, and text. You must
be careful not to use the Return key in-
stead of the Enter key; pressing Return will
cancel the range.
Flaws in the Plan
Set off against an impressive list of
strengths are three problems. The first is
Multiplans inability to scroll each pane of
a split screen independently. As noted, only
diagonal windows can be scrolled inde-
pendently, and independent scrolling is
necessary to view widely separated sec-
tions of a worksheet. The split screen is
The relatively
small size of the Mac
screen is a drawback
most often used when you are performing
What If analysis with large tables, and non-
independent scrolling means wasting
about half of an already small screen to
obtain the two independent diagonal
windows.
The relatively small size of the Mac
screen is also a drawback. When Multiplan
first appears on the Mac screen, it displays
84 cells in 14 rows and 6 columns. In con-
trast, Multiplan displays almost 75 percent
more cells — 140 in 20 rows and 7 col-
umns — on the IBM Personal Computer.
Having more cells on the screen at one
time makes working with a worksheet
easier. In fact, the major selling point of
some microcomputers is that they display
132 characters across the screen at one
time and are therefore well suited for work-
ing with spreadsheet programs.
The final problem is related to the
Mac’s uniform working environment, not
to a specific application program. When
you want to erase files, including Multiplan
worksheet files, the Mac requires that you
take them from the desktop and place
them in the Trash. This operation must
take place at the disk window level either
before you enter Multiplan or after you
have left the program.
The use of icons and a uniform way of
doing similar tasks in all application pro-
grams is certainly one of the Mac’s greatest
strengths; it helps you move from one ap-
plication to another easily and with a mini-
mum of training. But in this case, the
uniform environment is a drawback. Most
people want to have one last look at a
worksheet before consigning it to elec-
tronic purgatory, and with the Mac you
can’t do that. What you must do is keep a
list of the files you want to discard in the
Trash, and then do the operation after
you’ve left Multiplan. Microsoft should def-
initely put a Delete File command in the
File menu.
These few objections aside, the most
exciting thing about Multiplan on the Mac
is the way the classic strengths of a solid
spreadsheet program team up with the
latest technology to produce a winning
combination. Many people will undoubt-
edly find using the mouse an easy and nat-
ural way to select cells, split and scroll
windows, and edit formulas. The pull-
down menus and dialog boxes are more
important features, however, because they
make Multiplan easier to use than ever be-
fore. And you simply cannot make a spread-
sheet program too easy to use.
AAAAAAAAAA
Multiplan
Microsoft Corporation
10700 Northup Way
Bellevue, WA 98004
2061828-8080
List price: $195
Macworld
79
^ Review: Peripherals
Apple’s Imagewriter
Printer
The Imagewriter mirrors the Mac
screen’s text and graphics
Lon Poole
What you see is what you get — that’s the
watchword of the Apple Imagewriter
printer. Like the Mac screen, this printer
uses patterns of dots to produce text and
graphics. As a result, the Imagewriter can
print anything the screen can display.
The Imagewriter actually comes in
two models, but the only material differ-
ence between them is the width of paper
they accommodate. The standard model
holds paper up to 10 inches wide, while
the wide-carriage model can handle 15-
inch paper, which is handy for large
spreadsheets. (The wide-carriage model
will not be available until the second quar-
ter of 1984.) See Table 1 for an overview of
the Imagewriter’s features.
Connecting an Imagewriter to a
Macintosh is easy. Plug one cord into a
grounded outlet, another into the printer
socket on the back of the Mac, and slip in
some paper. Switch on the printer and
make sure its SEL light is glowing; the Im-
agewriter is ready to print.
Snapshots
Using various keystrokes, you can take
“snapshots” of what is showing on the
screen at any time. To get an instant print of
the whole screen, press the Command key
( §§ ) and 4 key simultaneously. For a printed
copy of the active window only, press Caps
Lock, §€ , and 4 together.
If you’d rather save the screen image
and print it later, press §€ and 3 simul-
taneously; the whole screen image will be
stored in a document named Screen 0. The
second time you press §€ -3, a current im-
age of the screen goes into a document
named Screen 1, the third time into a docu-
ment named Screen 2, and so on up to
Screen 9. To create more than ten
snapshots, you must rename a current
snapshot (such as Screen 0 to Screen 00),
because the Mac will not accept a file that
has a name already in use. All snapshot
documents are standard MacPaint docu-
ments, so you can use MacPaint to en-
hance them before printing.
Screen snapshots have their uses, but
most of the time you’ll want to print whole
documents, which rarely fit in a window.
Each application has a Print command, usu-
ally located in the File menu. Choosing the
Print command prints either the document
you’re currently viewing or another docu-
ment whose name you specify.
Print Quality
The Imagewriter does a remarkable
job of accurately reproducing the Mac
screen’s high-resolution graphics. The di-
mensions of a Mac screen and its printed
counterpart are close enough for visual
parity. Circles look round, squares print
square, and text generally looks the same
on the printer as on the screen (see
Figure 1).
The printer actually has finer resolu-
tion than the screen. Horizontally, the
printer can resolve 160 dots per inch, com-
With a good rib-
bon, printed images
appear at least as
dark, dense, and well-
defined as displayed
ones.
pared to the screen’s 72. Vertically, the ratio
is 144 to 72. The printer can overlap dots,
but the screen cannot. With a good ribbon,
printed images appear at least as dark,
dense, and well-defined as displayed ones.
One factor does detract from a printed
image’s sharpness and clarity: the Image-
writer uses a fabric ribbon, which cannot
produce crisp dots on porous computer
paper. Fuzzy edges on dots sometimes
help fill unwanted gaps, but they can also
make the printout look splotchy
Maov'orld 81
^ Review
The screen displa\\s images with
square dots, while the Imagewriter prints
them with round dots. Dot shape disparity
causes some barely perceptible variations
between displayed and printed images. Fig-
ure 2 compares a magnified image on the
Mac screen to the same image printed on
an Imagewriter.
The Imagewriter sometimes has trou-
ble printing certain background patterns
with complete regularity: The root of the
problem is the pin-feed mechanism. While
it is reliable (paper jams are rare), it is not
as precise as the more elaborate tractor-
feed mechanisms found on more expen-
The screen dis-
plays images with
square dots, while the
Imagewriter prints
them with round dots.
sive printers. Paper can shift ever so
slightly, especially lightweight (cheap)
fanfold paper. The shift shows up as faint
horizontal lines running across certain
backgrounds, notably the standard gray'
desktop background (see Figure 3). Those
ghostly lines never appear in plain text,
with its solid, unpatterned characters, how-
ever. You can minimize this effect by' using
heavier fanfold paper or by forsaking pin-
feed paper altogether in favor of single-
sheet paper.
Text reproduction on the Imagewriter
is excellent, and in most cases matches
quite well what y'ou see on the screen.
Some combinations of type font, size, and
style do look slightly different on the
printer, however. The differences in dot
size and shape between the printer and the
screen, along with dot fuzziness from ink
bleed, account for the aberrations.
A compaj'ison of
screen and printer
output. The dimen-
sions of the printout
closely match those of
the screen display.
Figure 2
Magnified screen and
printer output. Screen
dots are square, while
printer dots are
round.
82
Volume 1, Number 1
Printing Options
In most applications, a dialog box ap-
pears when you choose the Print com-
mand (see Figure 4). It lets you choose
how much to print and the quality of the
print resolution. Your choice of print qual-
ity — draft, standard, or high — determines
how closely the printed image will match
the displayed one.
Draft quality printing ignores pictures
altogether and prints characters in one
font, with no variation in style or size. Both
standard and high quality printing re-
produce pictures and text exactly as dis-
played. Standard quality images look
exactly like those displayed on the screen,
but high quality images have about twice
as many dots, giving them a fuller, denser
appearance. Figure 5 illustrates the differ-
ences among the three printer resolution
qualities and the screen resolution quality.
The print resolution quality also af-
fects how fast the Imagewriter prints. Draft
quality is fastest, because it simply sends
out a code for each character. The Im-
agewriter translates those codes into dot
patterns, using its own built-in character
font. The nominal print speed for draft
quality is 120 characters per second.
Standard quality is somewhat slower
than draft quality, because it sends dot pat-
terns, not character codes, to the printer.
The average print speed for standard qual-
ity is 90 seconds per page. High quality is
slowest of all. It sends two sets of dot pat-
terns for every line, so the Imagewriter has
to make two passes across each line. The
average print speed for high quality is 165
seconds per page.
Solid Oak File Cakinet
Repiica of the one in grandfather’s
office. Matches our rolltop desk
(see p. 21) and oak office chairs
(see p. 1 9) for a complete set.
Hand-rubbed tung oil finish in
your choice of natural, light
oak or dark stained oak.
FC602427L light oak $195
FC602427D dark oak $ 1 95
Shipping weight, 7.5 ibs.
Figures
Faint lines caused by
paper shift. Quality
single-sheet stationery
minimizes this
problem.
Edit Search Format Font Style
Letter brc
Quality:
<§) High
O Standard
O Draft
( OK J
Page Range:
(s)nii
O From: ||
|to: 1 1
Copies:
h 1
Paper Feed:
(§) Continuous
OCut Sheet
[ Cancel ]
O
Date: January 24, 1984
To: Pamela P.
From: Douglas D.
Re: Location Meeting Agenda
Here are my comments on your proposed agenda for the Location
group meeting next v^eek.
1. Moving Date: Let’s wait awhile. Discussing the moving date
Figure 4
Printing options. This
dialog box appears
when you choose the
Print command.
Macworld 83
^ Review
Printer Compatibility
The Imagewriter is manufactured for
Apple by Tokyo Electric, the same company^
that makes C. Itoh printers. However, that
does not mean the Imagewriter and the C.
Itoh printers are interchangeable. Apple
designed the Imagewriter s custom case to
make it significantly quieter. That alone
doesn’t make other printers incompatible;
it’s the custom electronics inside that
make it impossible to simply replace the
Imagewriter with another printer.
Your choice of
print quality deter-
mines how closely the
printed image will
match the displayed
one.
The Mac uses a special program called
a printer driver to send information to the
Imagewriter in a form the printer’s custom
electronics can interpret. Other brands of
dot matrix printers will not work with the
standard Mac printer driver, nor will daisy
wheel printers. But the standard printer
driver is a computer program, and you can
replace it with another program that drives
another kind of printer. Apple plans to re-
lease the information that will allow pro-
grammers to write drivers for various
printers.
Other Apple computers, such as the
Apple II, Apple III, and Lisa, can also use
the Imagewriter. All it takes is an appropri-
ate adapter kit from Apple. Each kit in-
cludes a printer driver program, a special
cable to connect the printer and the com-
puter, and a reference manual.
i^pple 'si ma.ge wri±erPrirvter
Whal you see is what you get — that's the watchword
o-f the Apple Imagewriter printer. Like the Mac
screen^ this printer uses patterns ot dots to represent
text and graphics. As a result, the Imagewriter
Apple's Imagewriter Printer
What you see is v;hat you. get — that's the vra.tchwor<l
of the Apple Imagewi'iter printer. Like the Mac
screen, this printer uses patterns of dots to represent
text and graphics. As a result, tlie Imagewriter
Apple's Imagewriter Printer
Whai you see is whai you gel — that s the watchword
of the Apple Imagewriter printer. Like the Mac
screen, this printer uses patterns of dots to represent
text and graphics. As a result, the Imagewriter
Apple's Imagewriter Printer
What you see is what you get — that's the watchword
of the Apple Imagewriter printer. Like the Mac
screen, this printer uses patterns of dots to represent
text and graphics. As a result, the Imagewriter
Figure 5
A comparison of draft,
standard, and high-
resolution print
qualities and the
screen resolution
quality.
84 Volume 1, Number 1
Imagewriter at a Glance
Resolution
Speed
Character size
160 horizontal by 144 vertical dots per inch, maximum
1.5 minutes per page, standard quality, standard carriage
2.75 minutes per page, high quality, standard carriage
2.5 minutes per page, standard quality, wide carriage
4.5 minutes per page, high quality, wide carriage
120 characters per second, draft quality (text only)
Depends on application software, but typically 8- to 72-
point, proportionally spaced
Line spacing Depends on application software, but variable in
increments of Vu4 inch
The Future
For now, the Imagewriter should sat-
isfy most Mac users’ needs for printed out-
put. Other printer manufacturers will
certainly write printer drivers, providing
some competition, but it will be difficult to
beat the Imagewriter’s quality for the
price. Those who cannot tolerate charac-
ters composed of dots will be willing to
sacrifice multiple type fonts, sizes, and
styles, along with the ability to print graph-
ics, for their cherished typewriterlike char-
acters. Daisy wheel printer manufacturers
will no doubt accommodate them some-
how. Perhaps the future lies somewhere in
the realm of ink-jet or laser printer
technology.
Copy thickness
0.28 mm maximum (3 copies)
Paper width
10 inches, standard carriage
15 inches, wide carriage
Printing
mechanism
9-wire printhead
Noise level
53 decibels, maximum
Paper feed
Single-sheet, pin-feed for continuous forms
Data
connection
Mac serial port (RS-232 standard)
Apple Imagewriter Printer
Apple Computer, Inc.
20525 Mariani Ave.
Cupertino, C A 95014
8001538-9696; in California
800/662-9238
List price: $495 standard carriage; price
not set on wide-carriage model
Power 120 VAC, grounded 180 watts maximum, 16 watts standby
requirements 220 VAC models available
Size
18W X 12D X 6H inches, standard carriage
24W X 12D X 6H inches, wide carriage
Approximate 19 lbs., standard carriage
weight 30 lbs., wide carriage
Macw'orld 85
Macware News
Announcements of new Macintosh products
Edited by Janet McCandless
Macware News reports on the
latest hardware and software
developed for the Macintosh.
Products are listed by names
of manufacturers, who pro-
vide information for the prod-
uct descriptions. Prices and
release dates are manufactur-
ers' estimates. In this issue, we
present a sample of products
expected to be available im-
mediately or in the near fu-
ture; the list is by no means
inclusive. Selected products
will be evaluated in the Re-
view section in this and future
issues q/'Macworld.
Hardware
■ Apple Computer
20525 Mariani Ave.
Cupertino, CA 95014
8001538 9696; in
California 8001662-9238
AppleLine
An interface device that allows
the Macintosh to be used as an
IBM 3278-2 terminal for access-
ing information on large IBM
mainframes. The self-contained
unit connects directly to the
3274/3276 type-cluster control-
ler coaxial cable and the Macin-
tosh serial interface. The
product enables users to de-
velop applications on a
Macintosh for transfer to a
mainframe, and vice versa.
Available during the first quar-
ter of 1984. List price unavail-
able at publication time.
Modem 300/Modem 1200
An intelligent modem (avail-
able in both 300 bps and 1200
bps versions) packaged with a
DemoPak from CompuServe, a
Premium Pak from The Source,
and an Accessory Kit that con-
tains the cables and manuals
necessary for installation. Both
Modem 1200, Apple Computer, Inc.
modems are equipped with an
RS-232C interface that has a
DB-9 connector. The modems
feature self-diagnostics and op-
erate with MacTerminal com-
munications software. Built-in
intelligence allows auto-dial
(touch-tone or pulse dialing)
and auto-answer, and enables
users to customize these func-
tions through simple com-
mands. Available upon release
of the Macintosh. List price:
$225 Modem 300, $495 Modem
1200 .
External Disk Drive, Apple
Computer, Inc.
External Disk Drive
An additional disk drive that
has a memory capacity of 400K
and connects directly to the
drive port. The drive is en-
closed in a 6- by 8-inch plastic
housing and uses 3kz-inch hard
shell micro-floppy disks. Avail-
able upon release of the Macin-
tosh. List price: $495.
Carrying Case
A padded carrying case that
holds the main unit and has in-
side pockets fitted for the key-
board, mouse, manuals, and
power cord. The pack is made
of Cordura nylon, which is both
water and tear resistant. De-
signed to be carried either by
hand or on the shoulder (a
shoulder strap is included), the
case is padded to protect the
Mac system during transporta-
tion in a car or plane; however,
a more protective container is
recommended for shipping.
The case fits under the seats of
most commercial airlines. The
Mac and carrying case together
weigh 22 pounds. Available
upon release of the Macintosh.
List price: $99.
Carrying Case, Apple
Computer, Inc.
Keypad
A ten-key numeric digital key-
pad that connects directly to
both the Macintosh keyboard
and the main unit. The key-
pad contains its own micro-
processor. It can be used alone
with the main unit and can be
86 Volume 1, Number 1
Keypad, Apple
Computer, Inc.
operated with four system
command keys. The unit
weighs two pounds and meas-
ures 6 by 4 inches. Available
upon release of the Macintosh.
List price: $99.
Security Kit, Apple Computer, Inc.
Security Kit
A kit that allows the keyboard
and main unit to be locked to
protect the Macintosh from
theft. One keyhole lock slips
into the keyboard and the
other into the main unit. A steel
cable is put through the two
locks. The end of the cable is
inserted into a metal cylinder
that has several tamper-proof
screws. When screwed in with
the kit’s special screwdriver,
they lock the cable. For com-
plete security, a padlock also
may be attached. Available
upon release of the Macintosh.
List price: $49.
3V2" Disk Box
Micro-floppy disks encased in
hard shells for use with the
Macintosh’s Sony disk drives.
The disks measure 3^/2 inches
and are durable and compact.
The exterior shell and metal
shutter protect the media from
damage and data loss due to
improper handling or dust.
Available upon release of the
Macintosh. List price: $49 for 10
disks.
y /2 Disk Box, 10 micro-floppy
disks, Apple Computer, Inc.
■ Davong Systems
217 Humboldt Ct,
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
408/734-4900
The following products will be
available during the first
quarter of 1984. List prices
were unavailable at publica-
tion time.
Davong Universal
Winchester Disk System
A single-drive hard disk system
available in 5-, 10-, 15-, 21-, and
32-megabyte (M) formatted ca-
pacities. The system supports
one master hard disk, one slave
hard disk, and one tape drive.
Data can be backed up with a
28M streaming cartridge tape
drive. Average access time for
5M to 21M systems is 110 milli-
seconds, 40 milliseconds for
32M systems. The minimal
transfer rate is 62.5 kilobytes
per second. The Winchester
runs on the Macintosh operat-
ing system and provides vol-
ume backup and disk cache.
Davong Streaming Tape
Backup
A backup drive that copies data
from the Winchester Disk Sys-
tem or from floppies onto Va-
inch tape cassettes. The stream-
ing tape has a formatted capac-
ity of 28M. The system copies
data in buffered stop/start or
streaming mode and backs up
15M in approximately 4 min-
utes. A cyclical redundancy
check procedure screens data
for errors.
Davong Multilink Local
Area Network
A shared, centralized hard disk
storage system that uses a syn-
chronous data link communica-
tions (SDLC) loop and operates
with Z8030-based protocol.
The stations, or nodes, are
linked by conventional coaxial
cable (RG-62, IBM3270) to a
hub device. The network can
Macworld 87
Macware News
connect up to 255 nodes. Each
node uses a network multifunc-
tion card that supports external
hard disk and network interfac-
ing, network boot features, and
optional I/O expansion. Data is
transferred at 1 megabit per
second, and messages can vary
from 1 to 540 bytes in length.
Davong has Mac Net
networking software for the
system and has designed op-
tional software, Mac OS, that
moves files between the Macin-
tosh and the IBM PC. Other
Multilink options include print
spooling and electronic mail.
■ Prometheus
Products, Inc.
45277 Fremont Blvd.
Fremont, CA 94538
4151490-2370
Promodem 1200
A 300/1200 bps stand-alone
modem compatible with Bell
212A- and 103-type modems.
Standard features include auto-
originate/auto-answer, an auto-
Promodem 1200, Prometheus
Products, Inc.
dialer, tone and pulse dialing,
an RS-232 interface, a real-time
clock/calendar, a programma-
ble intelligent dialing capacity,
alphanumeric display, internal
and remote diagnostics modes,
help commands, an internal
power supply, and a built-in
speaker with volume control.
Available upon release of the
Macintosh. List price: $495.
Promodem’s Options Pro-
cessor (sold separately) adds
features that may be used inde-
pendently or in combination
with the auto-dialer and other
modem commands. During a
power failure, the Options Pro-
cessor battery retains real clock
time and date and restores the
default operating parameters of
the modem. A business/per-
sonal directory stores tele-
phone numbers; directory
entries may be assigned indi-
vidual or group reference
names. A receive/transmit
buffer stores messages, which
can be sent later to numbers se-
lected by their individual or
group reference name. Avail-
able upon release of the Macin-
tosh. List price: $99.
■ Tecmar
Personal Computer
Products Division
6225 Cochran Rd,
Cleveland, OH 44139
2161349-0600
The following products are
available upon release of the
Macintosh. List prices were
unavailable at publication
time.
Removable Cartridge
Winchester
A hard disk that has a 5-mega-
byte storage capacity and
comes with a removable car-
tridge. The unit combines the
advantages of removable, trans-
portable media with the assets
of high-density, high-speed in-
formation access.
IEEE 488 Interface
An industrial standard interface
that enables transfer of data
from general purpose interface
bus peripherals to the Macin-
tosh via Applebuss. The unit
connects to the Applebuss port
and enables the Macintosh to
function in a variety of indus-
trial applications including
sophisticated measure instru-
mentation, chromatography,
and process and industrial
control. The board has fully im-
plemented IEEE 488 talker, lis-
tener, and controller functions.
It contains its own power
supply.
Telephone/Modem
A telephone and modem inter-
face that offers a cohesive ap-
proach to communications. The
board is mounted in an exter-
nal cabinet and functions as a
standard telephone with a
handset, or it can be connected
to another telephone. A demod-
ulated touch-tone decoder de-
tects incoming calls and
prevents piercing sounds or
garbling while the phone is
being used. The unit generates
a phone log without interven-
ing on the line. The modem is
300/1200 bps (212A compati-
ble) and has a pulse-tone auto-
matic dialer. Dual-tone multiple
frequency allows users to inter-
face any audio source (such as a
speech synthesizer) to the tele-
phone.
Print Buffer
A buffer that permits users to
employ the computer’s full
functions while printing text. It
is available in 16K and 64K ver-
sions and has its own power
supply.
■ Thermodyne
International
20850 S. Alameda St,
Long Beach, CA 90810
2131603-1976
Shok-Stop
A polyethylene carrying case
that has a foam core designed
for cargo transportation. The
case is certified for shipment
by airlines. Channels and cor-
ner bumpers protect the con-
tents under high-stress
conditions. The case, which
measures 22 by 18 inches with
a 12-inch bottom and a 5-inch
top, has recessed hinges and
latches, spring-loaded handles,
and interlocking ribs for stack-
ing. Its materials resist corro-
sion and fungus. Available upon
release of the Macintosh. List
price: $230.
Shok-Stop, Thermodyne Inter-
national
■ Verbatim
Corporation
323 Soquel Way
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
408/245-4400
Verbatim Datalife
Microdisk
A pocket-sized 3V^2-inch micro-
disk with a storage capacity
equivalent to that of the 51/4-
inch minidisk. A shutter door
and plastic shell protect the
media. The microdisks are
manufactured with a write/pro-
tect mechanism and a metal
Datalife Microdisk, Verbatim
Corporation
hub. Disks are packaged in
boxes of five, and twinpacks
and boxes of ten microdisks
will be marketed later. Available
upon release of the Macintosh.
List price: less than $6 per disk.
88 Volume 1, Number 1
Software
■ Apple Computer
20525 Mariani Ave,
Cupertino, CA 95014
8001538-9696; in
California 8001662-9238
Macintosh Assembler/
Debugger
A program that features a
mouse-based editor, a 68000
macro assembler, and a sym-
bolic debugger. The editor han-
dles multiple files concurrently
(file sizes are limited only by
disk space) and follows user in-
terface conventions. The macro
assembler produces relocatable
object code and symbol files
for symbolic debugging.
The mouse-driven symbolic
debugger can be operated re-
motely from a second Macin-
tosh — a significant benefit
when the machine is being de-
bugged since the program uses
less space. Multiple windows
display memory contents in
various formats including in-
struction and symbolic dis-
assembly. Available during the
first quarter of 1984. List price:
$99.
MacDraw
A structured graphics editor
that enables users to prepare
flow charts, graphs, technical
drawings, organizational
charts, and freehand drawings.
The program also allows users
to move, change, or transfer
graphics to other applications.
These flexible functions aid in
redesigning presentation
graphics or in adjusting
blueprints.
As with MacPaint, users
can select several predefined
shapes including arcs, rec-
tangles, squares, and circles.
Text can be added using vari-
ous type fonts, styles, and sizes.
Users can work on up to four
documents simultaneously.
Available during the second
quarter of 1984. List price: $125.
MacProject
A program for scheduling and
illustrating project develop-
ment that charts and displays
resource usage, tracks costs,
and graphically demonstrates
relationships between ac-
tivities. Users can define tasks,
indicate the time each will take,
draw relational lines between
jobs, and enter their start dates.
The program then charts a crit-
ical path and determines the
project’s completion date.
Conversely, it can also calcu-
late the necessary start date if a
completion date is known.
Users can transfer data from
spreadsheets to MacProject
documents. Combinations of
activities can be selected and
duplicated in other locations
on the chart. Available during
the second quarter of 1984. List
price: $125.
MacTerminal
A program used for asynchro-
nous communications that em-
ulates the VT-100 and VT-52. By
emulating the VT-100, the Mac-
intosh can receive commands
from timesharing services to
position the cursor, display in-
formation, and skip a desig-
nated number of characters or
lines.
MacTerminal sends and re-
ceives files at speeds of up to
19,200 bps. Users can store data
and scroll back through the
data. Text can be cut and pasted
to the terminal from other ap-
plications, and vice versa. Di-
alog boxes and forms simplify
the steps in configuring the
program to communicate with
other terminals. These configu-
rations can be saved in a hie for
future reference. Available dur-
ing the first quarter of 1984. List
price: $99.
Macintosh Logo
An interactive programming
language with graphics output,
designed for children. Children
draw pictures by learning how
to move a turtle on screen. The
language helps to build pro-
gramming skills; by giving
commands to the turtle the
child learns how to draw a
square, and by grouping com-
mands, how to make a state-
ment. Available during the
second quarter of 1984. List
price: $99.
■ CBS Software
One Fawcett PL
Greenwich, CT 06836
2031622-2615
Murder by the Dozen, CBS Software
Murder by the Dozen
A game that offers players 12
murder cases to solve. Informa-
tion supplied by the crime
computer may be used to ob-
tain a case history of the victim,
detect physical evidence, travel
to various locations, and inter-
view suspects. The game is
won by the person who identi-
fies the criminal and the motive
in the shortest time. Up to four
detectives can play. The game
package includes two reference
manuals with clues and solu-
tions, mystery master work-
sheets, and a solution decoder.
Available during the first half of
1984. List price unavailable at
publication time.
■ Chang Labs
5300 Stevens Creek
Blvd. #200
San Jose, CA 95129
408 / 246-8020
The following products will he
available during the first or
second quarter of 1984. List
prices were unavailable at
publication time.
MicroPlan
A financial modeling program
with built-in formulas. Micro-
Plan provides a complete
statistical package, including
formulas for amortizing
monthly loans, standard devia-
tions, and tax rate schedules,
and for determining the impact
of loan structure on cash flow.
It offers a help command and
built-in prompts. Its worksheet
size extends to 200 rows and 60
columns (approximately 1000
entries per table). The report
generator includes dollar signs,
commas, negative numbers,
percent signs, underlining, cen-
tered titles, and subtitles.
Consolidated Module
A program to retrieve and con-
solidate data from different files
and perform calculations, vari-
ances, and sensitivity analyses.
The program can merge tables
and add or subtract reports
from different departments.
Used with MicroPlan, its inter-
related reports can be revised
to build up-to-date manage-
ment summaries.
Macworld
89
Macware News
Link Module
KMicroPlan spreadsheet op-
tion for analyzing data from
mainframe files, timesharing
services, and files from other
application and spreadsheet
packages. With the Link Mod-
ule, MicroPlan tables can be
read by data base and word
processing applications. Built-
in routines post records to indi-
vidual or multiple rows or col-
umns and cross-tabulate and
analyze results.
FilePlan
A data base program that uses a
spreadsheet format for data en-
try. Records contain between
128 and 1024 characters, with a
total of 32 variable-length fields
(each using up to 99 charac-
ters). Users may view as many
as 15 records at a time, sort data
on 5 fields, and apply the query
feature to extract information.
Field and record parameters
may be defined after data entry.
The program includes prompts
that can be customized.
GraphPlan
An integrated business-graph-
ics spreadsheet package with
built-in formulas, statistical
commands, and graphics, sort-
ing, and ranking capabilities.
The program features auto-
matic generation of legends,
numerical, date, time, and log-
arithmic X- and Y-axis labels
and tic marks. Its graphics in-
clude explodable pie charts
and horizontal or vertical line
and bar graphs.
MemoPlan
A word processing program ori-
ented for memo and letter writ-
ing. Users may work on up to
five documents simultaneously,
flipping between files with a
single keystroke. The program
has been designed to save and
recover documents automati-
cally in the event of a power
failure. It offers standard word
processing features (such as
copy, move, delete, insert, jus-
tify, onscreen underline, split
screen, and search and re-
place), but does not include
headers, footers, or page-num-
ber print options.
DocuPlan
A word processing program de-
signed to format long reports
that require footnotes, sub-
scripts/superscripts, indexes,
and/or tables of contents. It has
the capability to prepare
itemized lists with bullets or
numbers, and adjust line spac-
ing, indentation, and margin
changes.
■ Desktop Software
Corporation
228 Alexander St,
Princeton, NJ 08540
609/924-7U1
NPL Information
Management System
A nonprogrammer’s language
for application development
that uses simple sentences to
collect data, make ad hoc que-
ries, and generate reports. The
language is similar to the popu-
lar data base query languages
RAMIS II, FOCUS, and
NOMADZ. Users can create
data bases; specify edit and val-
idation tests; select, sort, and
merge data records; and print
reports in tabular or letter for-
mat. Each record contains up to
4000 bytes and 100 fields. Up to
100 fields may be indexed using
up to 10 sort keys and 30 verb
objects per request.
The program is for use by
businesspeople and profes-
sionals who design specific
applications software and by
firms whose managers and
researchers extract and sum-
marize information from large
files and interact with corpo-
rate mainframes. The package
includes a query primer, a data
entry primer, a user’s guide,
and a system disk with sample
programs and data files. Avail-
able during the first half of
1984. List price: $950.
■ Dilithium Software
8285 S.W. Nimbus #151
Beaverton, OR 97005
800/5471842; 503/646 2713
Telofacts 2
A software package that assists
users in gathering and analyz-
ing information and designing
questionnaires. The program
demonstrates designing a ques-
tionnaire for data obtained
from respondents (statistics, re-
sume information, marketing
or survey data) and entering
the answers, and presents
choices for analyzing and dis-
playing results. Questionnaire
results can be displayed for one
question or an entire survey in
report format, ranks, lists, or
scores. The package includes
an installation guide, documen-
tation, a reference card, and a
disk. Available during the first
quarter of 1984. List price:
$199.95.
■ Living Videotex!
1000 Elwell Ct.
Palo Alto, CA 94303
415/964-6300
Think Tank
A program that offers users
flexibility in recording and re-
organizing ideas. The pro-
gram’s outline format enables
users to expand or eliminate
subheads and restructure sec-
tions without affecting overall
text structure. The program ex-
ploits use of the mouse and the
high-resolution graphics
screen. It controls the amount
of text to be viewed, searches
for key words, stores data on
screen, reorganizes or restruc-
tures data, and prints. Available
during the second quarter of
1984. List price unavailable at
publication time.
■ Microsoft
Corporation
10700 Northup Way
Bellevue, WA 98004
206/828-8080
Microsoft Budget
A program that helps users con-
struct operating budgets and
variance analysis worksheets.
The budget planning process,
based on the variable costing
method, develops six interre-
lated Multiplan worksheets to
build an operating budget. The
90
Volume 1, Number 1
program helps to calculate the
costs of running a business. You
can create worksheets to calcu-
late manufacturing overhead,
unit costs, costs of goods sold,
and sales and administrative ex-
penses, as well as sales budget
worksheets to project
revenues.
The Operating Budget work-
sheet copies data from other
worksheets and calculates the
contribution margin and net
operating income for products,
and can demonstrate the ef-
fects of changes in unit sales
volume.
The Variance Analysis work-
sheet is a budget control tool
divided into three sections: the
budget variance summary
shows variances between ac-
tual performance and results
forecasted in the Operating
Budget worksheet; detailed
variance analysis shows vari-
ances for sales volume, produc-
tion costs, fixed overhead, and
sales and administrative ex-
penses; and worksheet data
provides a matrix in which to
enter data used to recalculate
the summary and detail sec-
tions of the Variance Analysis
worksheet. Available during
the second quarter of 1984. List
price: $100.
Microsoft Cash Budget
A program that monitors cash
flow to provide managers with
accurate data for marketing, fi-
nance, and sales decisions.
Cash Budget creates five Multi-
plan worksheets to detail cash
flow and show net cash flow.
The first four determine cash
inflows from sales, cash out-
flows for purchase of materials
and merchandise, cash flows
from operations, and non-
operating cash flows. Cash
Microsoft Chart, Microsoft Corp.
Budget then consolidates those
results to produce a net cash
flow position for each interval
selected. The final result works
as a planning and strategy tool.
Available during the second
quarter of 1984. List price: $100.
Microsoft Chart
A program that translates nu-
meric data into graphic form to
illustrate relationships or com-
parisons presented by the data.
Users assign information to a
set of categories; each category
has a corresponding value. The
category-value sets form data
points, which may be com-
bined to form up to 64 data
series.
Once data has been assem-
bled, users choose a basic chart
type from the Gallery menu,
depending on their objectives
for presenting the data, the de-
vice on which the chart will be
printed or displayed, and the
amount or type of data in-
cluded. The program allows for
changes in shadings, colors,
line thicknesses, and positions
of titles. Shading and line for-
mat options are presented in di-
alog boxes.
The mouse is used to select
objects on the chart and move
them to different positions.
Text placement on charts is
user controlled. A group of
charts can be created on
screen, or two or more charts
can be overlaid. Charts auto-
matically reflect changes to
data series. Available during the
first quarter of 1984. List price:
under $200.
Microsoft File
A nonprocedural tool that helps
individuals maintain personal
data files. The program offers
forms-based data entry and re-
trieval. Users select a format for
data entry suited to their per-
sonal file management needs
from a gallery of standard data
forms. Users can adapt data
forms by determining the num-
ber of fields, field sizes, and
field designations, and by se-
lecting data orientation by col-
umns or rows.
Files reporting capabilities
include sorting and summing
on any field, simple mathemati-
cal operations, averages,
counts, and logical operators.
The interactive program per-
mits users to transfer data
entered in it to other applica-
tions. Available during the first
quarter of 1984. List price:
under $200.
Microsoft Financial
Statement
An evaluation tool that assesses
a company’s financial perfor-
mance. The program helps
users create balance sheets and
income statements based on
periods (e.g., quarters or
years) they select. Using work-
sheet data. Financial State-
ment automatically calculates
18 financial performance ratios
used by accountants and finan-
cial professionals. The ratios
are divided into four catego-
ries: liquidity, leverage, prof-
itability, and efficiency. Users
are then able to gauge their
firm’s ability to service current
and long-term debts, to meas-
ure net returns, and to evaluate
how efficiently company re-
sources are being used. Avail-
able during the second quarter
of 1984. List price: $100.
Microsoft Personal Finance
An interactive analysis tool for
personal financial planning that
addresses cash flow analysis.
Users can produce a financial
forecast through the develop-
ment of four worksheets. The
main worksheet summarizes
all sources and uses of cash and
includes a personal balance
sheet. The three supplemen-
tary worksheets can be used to
detail earnings, living ex-
penses, assets, and liabilities.
They can be linked to the main
worksheet for analysis. Cash
flow analysis enables users to
plan net worth positions with
variable net cash positions.
Available during the second
quarter of 1984. List price: $100.
Macworld
91
Macware News
Microsoft Word
A word processing program
that uses the mouse, windows,
dialog boxes, and graphics to
provide a wide range of text
editing capabilities. The docu-
ment window uses the standard
Macintosh scroll bars, split
bars, and size box. Moving or
copying text and graphics is ac-
complished by standard Macin-
tosh editing functions.
The program displays on-
screen character formats (e.g.,
bold, underline, or italic) and
character positioning. List
boxes offer choices in font
and type sizes. Character styles
can also be selected from the
keyboard, using the §§ (Com-
mand) key. Additional features
allow searching to a page num-
ber, footnote placing and se-
quencing, customizing of style
sheets, compiling of glossaries,
automatic paragraph reformat-
ting, and paragraph and page
formatting. Available during the
first quarter of 1984. List price:
under $200.
■ Peat Marwick
Mitchell & Co.
345 Park Ave.
New York, NY 10154
2UI758-9700
SEACAS
A microcomputer-based tool
for automating auditing tasks.
When fully implemented, the
program is expected to reduce
total audit hours by at least 10
percent and to improve audit
documentation. SEACAS (Sys-
tems Evaluation Approach/
Computerized Audit Support)
facilitates the development of
audit control programs, and as-
sists auditors in posting audit
adjustments and accurately up-
dating trial balances and finan-
cial statements.
In conjunction with the audit
retrieval package System 2190,
data to prepare financial mod-
els can be retrieved from client
files and public and central of-
fice data bases. Clients need
not own a computer to use the
program. Available during the
first or second quarter of 1984.
List price unavailable at pub-
lication time.
■ Software Publishing
Company
1901 Landings Dr.
Mountain View, CA 94043
4151962 8910
PFS File
A data base program that per-
mits users to custom design
forms that can be modified or
updated. PFS File offers the
basic data base management
features (recording, storing,
updating, and sorting informa-
tion), but simplifies entry and
sort features for first-time com-
puter users. Field attributes do
not have to be defined, and
items can be multiline. Com-
mon applications for the forms
include invoices, personnel rec-
ords, book indexes, and real es-
tate listings. Available during
the first half of 1984. List price:
$ 100 .
PFS Report
A program that produces tabu-
lar summaries for presentation-
quality reports from data
stored in PFS File. It sorts al-
phabetically, numerically, or by
key words and calculates aver-
ages, counts, and totals. Users
can format data to center, un-
derline, and align columns, and
number pages. Available during
the first half of 1984. List price:
$ 100 .
Both File and Report use the
Macintosh s specially designed
features. With the mouse, users
can quickly move to any posi-
tion on the screen or within a
PFS form. Menu bars and pull-
down menus let users select
functions at any time. Func-
tions can also be selected by
pressing one or more keys.
Windows enable users to view
the form at all times, regardless
of which function is being per-
formed on it.
■ Ttade'^Plus
460 California Ave.
Palo Alto, C A 94306
8001952-9900;
in California 8001972-9900;
4151324 4554
A service that gives investors
last sale prices and stock mar-
ket data. Subscribers can trade
all stocks and stock options
listed in the Wall Street Jour-
nal directly through their per-
sonal computers. Stock and
option prices can be trans-
ferred into worksheets, and
users can obtain up to three
months of historical data for-
matted in ASCII, DIF, ox Multi-
plan. Separate IRA and Keogh
accounts may be maintained,
and users can trade securities
in these accounts as well.
Trade* Plus tracks gains and
losses for up to three portfolios
and supplies tax records for
each. The system is open to
subscribers 24 hours a day, 7
days a week. Its release is
based on the availability of
Macintosh communications
software. List price: $195; 10
cents per minute, night; 40
cents per minute, day.
■ Volition Systems
P.O.Box 1236
Del Mar, C A 92014
6191481-2286
Modula-2
A language integrated with the
Macintosh operating system
that works on text files and gen-
erates code files that can be ex-
ecuted in the Macintosh
working environment. The
Modula-2 system combines
compiler, module library, and
library manager. Library mod-
ules include random-access
files, disk directory operations,
format conversions, strings,
decimal arithmetic, storage
management, program sched-
uling, and process scheduling.
Developed by Niklaus Wirth,
the creator of Pascal, the pack-
age contains sample and dem-
onstration source programs
(including p-shell and 40 tu-
torial source programs) and
complete documentation. Avail-
able during the second quarter
of 1984. List price: $495.
Macware News uses infor-
mation provided by manufac-
turers; it does not evaluate
products or corroborate man-
ufacturers' claims. Send a de-
scription and photograph of
your new product to Macware
News, Macworld, 5 55 De Haro
St., San Francisco, CA 94107,
415/861-3861.
92
Volume 1, Number 1
THE MOST USEFUL IDEAS ARE OFTEN
REMARKABLY SIMPLE.
^he first filing system was a remarkably simple
way to do incredibly useful things. Like organize
EMPLCnrEE a business and make it work.
PFS*:FILE and PFS:REPORTare remarkably
simple software programs that can help you
organize your business faster and more
effectively And both programs are amazingly
easy to learn.
FILE and REPORT were designed for
people without computer experience. So all
instructions are easy to understand. And
you can be productive quickly.
FILE lets you record, retrieve and
heview information like personnel records
and purchase orders. Instantly You can even cross reference by department or job
or however you want. And you arrange information in “forms” you design yourself
So your filing system will fit your needs. Not your computer s.
REPORT is the perfect companion program to FILE. Because it gives you
the power to summarize and perform calculations on information you’ve stored
with FILE.
With REPORT, you can
create presentation quality
summaries in table form in
just minutes. Automatically
sorted, calculated, formatted
and printed!
FILE and REPORT are
both fully integrated with the
PFS Family of Software,
including PFS SOLUTIONS
which are pre designed forms
and reports for popular
applications.
PFS: It’s the powerful soft-
ware that’s simple to learn.
It’s the power of simplicity
See your computer dealer
for more details.
PFS
THE POWER OF SIMPLICL
The PFS Family of Software currently runs on IBM,® Apple* Radio Shack, Digital, Hewleii-Packard,Texas In.siaiments,
Panasonic and other personal computers. © Software Publishing Corporation.
6
7
8
9
1
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1
1 1
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13
1
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94 Volume 1, Number 1
Hands On; Spreadsheets
tfoiio
THIS CERTIf^KiATE IS
TRANSFERABLE IN
NEW YORK OR CHICAGO
OR SKOKIE. ILLINOIS
Investing
with Multiplan
Andrew T, 'Williams
The best way to find out
what a program really
can do is to make it
work. 'When you put
Multiplan to the test,
you'll be pleasantly
surprised. Just use the
mouse to move the
pointer to the cell in
which you want to make
an entry, click the mouse
button, and you're
ready to type text or a
number, paste in a for-
mula, or create your
own function. Multiplan
implements the pull-
down menus, dialog
boxes, scroll bars, and
other unique features
of the Macintosh's
advanced technology.
Constructing a simple stock portfolio valuation work-
sheet With Multiplan demonstrates the program’s
powerful formula-creating and formatting features.
This sample worksheet is set up to compute the worth
of investments on a daily basis. To begin constructing
it, set all column widths to 8 characters. At that width,
the 9 columns of the portfolio valuation worksheet
will appear on the screen at one time, simplifying the
task. To set the column width, pull down the Select
menu and choose the All option. Next, pull down the
Format menu, choose the Column Width option, and
set the column width to 8 characters.
Now you are ready to enter the headings shown in
Figure 1. Begin by positioning the pointer over cell
R1C3 and clicking the mouse button to select that cell.
Then type Portfolio Valuation Worksheet
While typing, you’ll notice two important features
of the program. First, Multiplan is smart. It knows you
are typing text and accepts it without making you press
an “alpha” key or type a special character, such as the
quotation mark, to initiate a text entry. Secondly, all of
the text you type will be displayed, even though it ex-
tends beyond the right boundary of cell R1C3. Multi-
plan has “soft cell boundaries,” so that lengthy text
entries can extend into adjacent cells, provided those
cells are empty. These two features make entering text
for titles, row labels, and column headings extremely
easy.
After you enter the title, select cell R3C1 and enter
the word Date:. While you still have R3C1 selected, pull
down the Format menu and choose the Align Right
option. Now select the block of cells from R5C1 to
R6C9 for the column headings. The Mac gives you sev-
eral methods for selecting this range. The easiest is to
click the cell at one corner of the range, R5C1, and
then move the pointer to the opposite corner, R6C9.
When the pointer is on the cell, press the Shift key and
click the mouse button. The entire range will be
selected.
Macworld 95
Hands On
^ File Edit Select Format Options Calculate
Figure 1
Portfolio valuation worksheet headings.
Multiplan has
“soft cell boundaries, ”
so that lengthy text en-
tries can extend into
adjacent cells.
As with all selected cells or ranges, this one is dis-
played in reverse video (white characters on a black
background). The first cell of the range, R5C1, has the
solid white border that indicates it is the active cell.
Your typing appears in this cell on the worksheet. Now
type the word Stock. When you are finished, press the
Enter key and watch what happens.
The range is still selected, but the active cell
moves one cell to the right. Each time you complete an
entry by pressing Enter, Multiplan advances the active
cell so that the worksheet is ready to receive your next
entry. You can skip over cells by repeatedly pressing
the Enter key, and you can back up by holding down
the Shift key when you press Enter. Don’t use the Re-
turn key to finish an entry; it makes the entry, but it
also cancels the range selection.
After you have entered the column headings
shown in Figure 1 and while you still have the block se-
lected, you can align the labels. Multiplan offers three
choices for aligning text in a cell: left, right, or center.
Column headings look best aligned either at the right
or at the center of each cell. Pull down the Format
96
Volume 1, Number 1
^ File Edit Select Format Options Calculate
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
1 1
12
13
14
8
10
P ortf 0 1 i 0 Va luat i on W or ksheet
Date:
1
1
1
1
Stock Purchase
■Number
Original
; Today's : Today's
Dollar
Percent
1
Graph oifi
Symbol : Price
Shares
Cost
: Price : Value
Change
Change
Percent Change
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
Figure 2
Entering the Original Cost formula into cell R7C4. The for-
mula bar at the top of the screen shows the formula that is
entered into the active cell.
menu, make your choice, and all the cells in the se-
lected area will be aligned (in Figure 1 the labels are
centered).
You are now ready to construct the formulas in
the main body of the worksheet.
Formulas
A great advantage of electronic spreadsheets is
that they allow you to create formulas to do routine
calculations. This function facilitates changing a num-
ber to update a worksheet or to see what will happen
if one of the underlying assumptions changes. You can
always be sure the results are mathematically correct
because they are calculated by the computer.
This portfolio valuation worksheet uses several
formulas. The first is the Original Cost in column 4,
which is the Purchase Price from column 2 multiplied
by the Number of Shares from column 3. In a similar
fashion. Today s Value, Dollar Change, and Percent
Change can be calculated by properly defined for-
mulas.
Defining a Multiplan formula is easy because you
can use the mouse to point to the different cells. To
create the formula for Original Cost, for example,
move the pointer to cell R7C4 and select the cell by
clicking the mouse button. Now type an equals sign
( = ) to announce to Multiplan that you want to create
a formula. The equals sign appears in both the cell and
the formula bar at the top of the screen.
Pointing with the mouse pays off here. Cell R7C2
contains the purchase price for the first stock, and that
price will be the first part of the formula. Move the
pointer to R7C2 and click the mouse button. The refer-
ence RC[-2] appears in the active cell and the formula
bar. This designation refers to a cell that is relative to
the active cell R7C4. It is Multiplans way of saying,
“Get the information from a cell in this row (R without
a number means the current row), two columns to the
left of the active cell” — C[-2].
Since you want to multiply the Purchase Price,
RC[-2], by the Number of Shares from column 3, R7C3,
type an asterisk (*). This symbol is the multiplication
.sign. Now click cell R7C3, and the formula bar will
show = RC[-2>RC[-1].
Macworld 97
Hands On
^ 4 File Edit Select Format Options Calculate
Figure 3
Sample worksheet with all formulas in place. Blank cells by zero is specified. Once data is entered into the worksheet,
are for data entry. Cells containing formulas display either a if=DIV/0! will be replaced by a value.
$0.00 or # DIVIO!, which indicates a formula where division
Defining a Multi-
plan formula is easy
because you can use
the mouse to point to
the different cells.
The Original Cost formula is complete. Press En-
ter and the formula will be entered into cell R7C4. A
zero appears in the cell because both the references in
the formula are to cells that are, for the moment, blank
(see Figure 2). When information is entered, the result
will be calculated automatically.
Use the mouse to point to the appropriate cells to
create the formulas for Today s Value (Toda\^ s Price
times Number of Shares), Dollar Change (Today s
Value minus Original Cost), and Percent Change (Dol-
lar Change divided by Original Cost).
When you specify the Percent Change formula,
#DIV/0! appears in cell R7C8. Don’t worry; you haven't
done anything wrong. Multiplan is just saying that you
have created a formula that calls for the impossible: di-
vision by zero. As soon as data is entered so that cell
R7C4, Original Cost, no longer contains a zero, the
value calculated by the formula will replace #DIV/0!.
Don’t bother to multiply the Percent Change for-
mula by 100 to scale the decimal up to a percentage.
The decimals will be displayed as percents (complete
with percent signs) when you format the cells with the
Percent option.
98
Volume 1, Number 1
^ File Edit Select Format Options Calculate
1
2
3
4
5 1
6
7
8
1
: Portfolio Valuation Worksheeti
2
1
1
3
Date;
January 24, 1984
1
4
1
5
Stock
Purchase
Number
Original
Today's i
Today's
Dollar
Percent
Grap
6
Symbol
Price
Shares
Cost
Price 1
Value
Change
Change
Perc
7
AAPL
200
If3650’
It 40 7 6
$426^
ilT7%
8
im
$125.38
Too
$12538’
$1 20.88 T
$12088
($450)
’ -T59%
9
DEC
’ $82.75'
joo'
T$8275
’ $7^
' $7163^
($1112)
-1344%
10
INTC
$40.00
200
$8000
'$8400
$400
5^00%
H
1 1
TOTAL:
$32463
1
$31727
($736)
12
1
13
1
14
1
O
Figure 4
Completed sample worksheet with bar graphs in column 9.
You now have created the formulas for the first
eight cells in the first row of the table. To complete the
formulas, you need only to enter the formula for the
Graph of Percent Change in column 9.
Bar Charts
Multiplan is not a graphics program, but it does
use the Mac s high-resolution screen to draw excellent
horizontal bar charts. The bars are either black (posi-
tive values) or white (negative values). Bars are drawn
using the Bar Graph option from the Format menu.
Each bar is one cell high, and its length is determined
by the value of the number in the cell containing the
bar.
To set the Bar Graph format, select cell R7C9, pull
down the Format menu, and choose Bar Graph. Next,
hold down the mouse button and drag the pointer up
to highlight cells R5C9, R6C9, and R7C9. Cells R5C9
and R6C9 contain the words “Graph of Percent
Change.” Use the Left Align command from the For-
mat menu to align these three cells to the left. The Left
Align command displays the bars directly below the
headings and next to the corresponding percentages
in column 8.
Use the pointer to enter the formula Percent change
*100 into cell R7C9. Multiplying by 100 is used in this
instance to produce easily distinguished bars. If your
bars don’t show the differences in percentage changes
clearly, try another scaling factor such as 75 or 125.
Once again the message #DIV/0! appears, indicat-
ing that you have created a formula referring to a cell
in which division by zero has been attempted. Every-
thing will be fine when data is entered into the table.
Formatting Features
Multiplan has a rich assortment of format options
with which you can improve the appearance of work-
sheets. You have already used an align command to
line up the column headings. Now set the Dollar for-
mat to improve the appearance of the columns con-
taining currency — columns 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Also set
the Percent format for column 8 so the numbers in that
column will display as percentages.
To set a format, first select the range to be format-
ted. Since you will be formatting entire columns, it is
Macworid 99
Hands On
4 File Edit Select Format Options Calculate
January 24, 1 984
!□!
1
2
3
4
portfo
5
6
7
8
9
10
1
iPortfoli 0 Valuati on Worksheet
hh
Figure 5
The sample worksheet filled with crosshatches, indicating that
some columns are too narrow to accommodate data.
Multiplan uses
the Mac’s higb-resolu-
tion screen to draw
excellent horizontal
bar charts.
easiest to select an entire column by clicking the
mouse button over the column number in the border
above the worksheet.
Since the columns containing currency aren’t all
next to one another, use the §€ (Command) key and
the mouse button together to select a range of nonad-
jacent columns. Hold down the §€ key, point to a col-
umn, and click the mouse button. Do this to select
columns 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Then pull down the Format
menu and choose the Dollar option. Finally, click the
column number for column 8 and set the Percent
format.
Filling Up the Table
Now you are ready to use the Fill Down command
to copy the formulas from row 7 down the table. But
first you must select the area to be filled. Begin by plac-
ing the pointer on cell R7C1 and clicking the mouse
button.
Decide how many stocks to put on the worksheet.
In the example there are four stocks, so move the
pointer to row 10 in column 9. This is the opposite cor-
100
Volume 1, Number 1
^ ^ File Edit Select Format Options Calculate
January 24, 1984
portfolio
Portfoli 0 Valuati on Worksheet
o
Date;
:.J.984.
Stock Purchase Number Original Today's
Symbol
AAPL
IBM
DEC
INTC
TOTAL:
Price
$18.25
$125.38
$82.75
$40.00
Shares
200
100
100
200
Cost
$3650
$12538
$8275
$8000
$32463
Price
Today's
Value
$4076
$12088
$7163
$8400
$31727
Dollar
Change
$426
($450)
($ 1 112 )
$400
($736)
Percent
Change
1 1.67%
-3.59%
-13.44%
5.00%
Graph of
Percent Cl
Figure 6
Worksheet after Protect Document command is executed. The
unprotected cells are underlined and the active cell will move
from unprotected cell to unprotected cell each time you press
Enter
ner of the block formed by cell R7C1 and R10C9. With
the pointer on R10C9, hold down the Shift key and
click the mouse button to select the block.
Next, choose the Fill Down command from the
Edit menu. Everything you specified for the cells of the
first row will be copied down the respective columns
to fill the rest of the cells in the range.
Totaling Your Position
You can total the Original Cost, Today s Value, and
Dollar Change columns by placing the Multiplan func-
tion SUM in the appropriate cells along the bottom of
the table. The SUM function adds the contents of a
range of cells, and you can select that range either by
pointing or by naming the range.
Begin by entering the word TOTAL: into cell RllCl.
To see how the name feature works, name the range
for Original Cost. Locate the pointer on cell R7C4, hold
down the mouse button, and drag the pointer down to
cell R10C4 to select the range to be named. Pull down
the Select menu and choose the Define Name option.
A dialog box appears, and you can type in the name.
This group of cells contains the Original Cost for each
stock, so name it COST.
To sum the cells in COST, select cell R11C4 and
pull down the Edit menu. Choosing the Paste function
makes a dialog box containing all of Multiplan s built-
in functions appear. Move the scroll box in the dialog
box until SUM() appears. Select SUM, and it will be
pasted into the formula bar.
Pull down the Edit menu again. This time choose
the Paste Name option. A dialog box containing all as-
signed names appears. So far you’ve only assigned one
name, COST Choose COST, and it will be pasted into
SUM() to form the function SUM(COST). Finally, press
Enter to enter the completed function in cell R11C4.
Name the cells in the Today’s Value column VALUE
and those in the Dollar Change column CHANGE. Then
define the SUM functions for each of these columns.
You can use the Paste Name and Paste Function op-
tions, or you can type in the functions and names di-
rectly as = SUM(VALUE) and = SUM(CHANGE).
When you are finished, the worksheet will look like
the one in Figure 3-
Macworld 101
Hands On
Filling In the Blanks
The table is now complete. Just enter the neces-
sary information about the stock symbol, price per
share, and number of shares into the appropriate
cells in columns 1, 2, 3, and 5, and leave the rest to
Multiplan.
Figure 4 shows the data for a completed sample
worksheet, but if you enter this data in the appropriate
cells in columns 1, 2, 3, and 5, you’ll see a worksheet
filled with crosshatches, as in Figure 5. This indicates
that some columns are too narrow to accommodate
the data to be entered in them.
You can save some space by formatting columns 4,
6, and 7 to display their information with no decimal
places. (Select those columns and then pull down the
Format menu and choose the Number of Decimals . . .
option.)
The completed worksheet in Figure 4 almost fits
on one screen. You will have to use the scroll box
along the bottom edge of the worksheet to see the bar
graphics in column 9.
Setting Column Widths
The final step is adjusting the column widths so
that all the data is visible. (Regardless of what appears
on the screen, the actual number will be in the Mac’s
memory, where it is used in all calculations.)
With the mouse, adjusting individual column
widths is easy. Just move the pointer to the horizontal
box containing the column numbers at the top of the
screen. The pointer icon will change to indicate that
you can use the pointer to adjust the column width.
Position the pointer on the boundary of the column
you want to change, press and hold down the mouse
button, and drag the boundary in the desired direc-
tion. Expand each column until the number replaces
the crosshatching. Expand the right-hand column con-
taining the bar graphs to 30 or 40 characters.
Locking Up the Worksheet
Now that your worksheet is finished, you may
want to go one step further and take out a little insur-
ance. Multiplans Protect Document command pro-
tects your worksheets from accidental changes. This
insurance is particularly important in an office in
which the person who enters data to update a work-
sheet may be unfamiliar with the procedures involved.
Multiplan lets you specify a personal password
for each worksheet. Once a password has been as-
signed, a protected worksheet can be viewed but not
changed by anyone who doesn’t know the password. If
you forget your own password,*you won’t be able to
unlock the worksheet either, so choose a password
that is easy to remember. You might use something
from the spreadsheet itself — for example, the first let-
ters of the title of the spreadsheet (PVW in this exam-
ple). If your worksheet doesn’t require protection, you
can accept the blank line in the dialog box, and a pass-
word won’t be required to unprotect the worksheet.
Before you can protect the portfolio valuation
worksheet with the Protect Document command, you
have to unprotect those cells where data will be en-
tered when you update the worksheet. Since not all of
the cells are adjacent, you must use the §§ key in tan-
dem with the mouse button.
Begin by positioning the pointer on cell R3C2,
where the date will be entered, and clicking the
mouse button. Cell R3C2 is now selected. Move the
pointer to cell R7C5 in the Today’s Price column. Hold
down the % key and the mouse button simultaneously
and drag the pointer down column 5 until you have se-
lected all the data entry cells in that column.
Now pull down the Options menu and choose
Remove Cell Protection. The selected cells are un-
protected, and you are ready to protect the rest of the
worksheet by choosing the Protect Document com-
mand from the Options menu.
When Protect Document is executed, the ap-
pearance of the Multiplan screen changes dramat-
ically. Row numbers, column numbers, and the dashed
lines that divided the screen into a grid of cells disap-
pear. The unprotected cells are underlined, and if you
don’t click the mouse button, the data entry range ap-
pears in reverse video (see Figure 6).
Updating the Worksheet
To update a protected worksheet, all you have to
do is begin typing. The active cell is the date cell, the
first cell you specified in the unprotected range. Type
the date and press Enter. The active cell automatically
moves to the next unprotected cell, the first cell under
Today’s Price. Multiplan is now ready for you to update
the prices. Each time you finish an entry, press Enter;
the active cell moves to the next cell, ready to receive
your next entry.
If you want to skip a cell, press Enter without mak-
ing an entry. The active cell will move on. If you want
to go back to a previous cell, use the Shift-Enter com-
bination.
The Sky’s the Limit
The simple worksheet just described is only a be-
ginning. With the ability to unprotect cells randomly
on the worksheet and move the active cell through
these cells in the order they were selected, you can
create easy-to-use data entry forms. You can set up in-
voices, budgets, profit and loss statements, cash flow
statements, and all types of report forms.
Just remember to unprotect the data entry cells
before protecting the worksheet. Then anyone can up-
date the worksheet without the risk of unauthorized
or unintended changes.
Multiplan
Microsoft Corporation
10700 Northup Way
Bellevue, WA 98004
2061828-8080
List price: $195
102 Volume 1, Number 1
Congratulations
Apple Computer
dilithium Press
P.O. Box 606
Beaverton, OR 97075
(800) 547-1842
Dilithium Press, the #1 publisher of easy-
to-read computer books, will release
books and book/software packages for
the Macintosh in Spring, 1984. Watch for
our announcements ‘m Macworld and
check your local bookstore or computer
store for our new titles.
Hands On: Word Processing
Tips for Mac Writers
A collection of 25 practical
techniques for using
MacWrite
Andrew Fluegelman
Although most word processing programs
have similar functions and features, each
has different ways of implementing them.
MacWrite is an easy-to-use program, but
there are some ways to improve upon its
features, as you will find out when you ex-
periment with it. The following tips will
help you use MacWrite5 unique editing
and formatting features more efficiently.
Deleting
Whatever your writing style, you will
probably use the delete function more
often than any other. There are several
ways to make deletions with MacWrite,
and each is particularly useful in different
writing and editing situations.
• While you are keying in text, use the
Backspace key to correct mistyped charac-
ters or to remove a word or two. This tech-
nique lets you keep your hands on the
keyboard so that your writing flow is un-
broken. Most writers probably use this
technique naturally, but if you’re new to
word processing or keyboard writing, you
might be tempted to use some of the more
powerful editing functions when a simple
destructive backspace is sufficient.
• A common editing function is delet-
ing stray characters from a bod\^ of text. In
this situation, using the Backspace key is
the quickest and most accurate way to de-
lete. Position the pointer so that the inser-
tion point is to the right of the character(s)
to be deleted, click the mouse button, and
press Backspace. This method is easier
than using the mouse to select the charac-
ters to be deleted because you onh' have to
set the position of the pointer once. Select-
ing characters with the mouse involves
dragging the pointer from the starting
point to the ending point of the selection.
• When you want to delete a larger
portion of text such as several words, you
should select the phrase to be deleted by
dragging the pointer over that text. If you
have no use for the text you’re deleting,
pressing the Backspace key is the fastest
way to get rid of it. Keep in mind that this
operation will not put the deleted text into
the Clipboard, so you can’t reuse it; how-
ever, choosing the Undo command from
the Edit menu allows you to recover de-
leted text immediately (pressing §€ -z also
undoes the previous action).
• If you are deleting and substituting
new text, take advantage of the powerful
MacWrite feature that automatically de-
If you’re delet-
ing a substantial por-
tion of text, don’t cut
it without pasting it
somewhere.
letes selected text and inserts new text in
its place. In other words, if you type “The
quick green fox. . . you can make your cor-
rection by selecting the word green, and
then typing brown. Overall, this innova-
tive feature is the most useful MacWrite
editing technique.
• You can also select a word by dou-
ble-clicking the mouse button on it. If
you’ve badly mangled a word such as suh-
situtoin, for example, don’t go to great
lengths to salvage the correct characters;
select the whole word by double-clicking
and retype it. This tip also applies to short
phrases you want to repair or change, such
as “The brown quick foxes.” You can select
and retype “quick brown fox” in less time
than it would take you to analyze how to go
about fixing the original.
• None of the above three deletion
techniques will cut deleted text to the Clip-
board, so you have to be careful that you
don’t delete anything of value. You can use
these techniques to your advantage, how-
ever, if you want to delete text and already
have some in the Clipboard that you’re sav-
ing for a later paste action.
• You might find it more convenient to
select phrases for deletion by dragging the
pointer backward, from the end point of
the selection to the beginning. Since you
read from left to right to decide what to se-
lect, your eye is already grounded at the
end of the selection. It’s easier to start
dragging at that point and work backward
than to find the beginning point again and
still have to keep an eye out for the end
point. Of course, this technique is a matter
of personal taste, and might depend on
whether you’re right-handed or have per-
fected your tennis backhand stroke, but
give it a try (see Figure 1).
• You might be surprised at such an
exhaustive analysis of how to select and de-
lete text. It’s worth your time, however, to
become familiar with the techniques that
will serve you best while you are writing
and to make them automatic reflexes. The
tennis analogy is really not so farfetched. If
you practice your strokes at the beginning.
104 \blume 1, Number 1
Figure 1
You can select text by dragging the pointer back-
ward, from the end point to the beginning point
of the selection
^ A File Edit Search Format Font Style
The current common wisdom accepts that computers
have revolutionized the craft of writing. A half hour of
creating words with the Macintosh will convince you,
however, that the realJgJ^B^ffl writing has only just
begun. <
Up to now, word processors — for all their editing,
searching, sorting, and paginating power — have
remained greatly glorified electronic typewriters. But
with the arrival of Macintosh, the scope of computer
writing skills is no longer confined to stringing
characters together. The power to control typography
and format has been put directly in the hands of every
writer. The art of writing has never been so
you’ll be a much better player in the word
processing game.
• This last deletion tip has nothing to
do with mechanical efficiency If you’re de-
leting a substantial portion of text — a para-
graph or even a few sentences — don’t cut
it without pasting it somewhere, either to
the end of your document or to the Scrap-
book. Those phrases and ideas may be
useful somewhere else in your text or per-
haps in some other writing project. When
you’re ready for your final edit, you can
save the unused fragments to separate files
if they’re still of value.
Editing
When you get to moving text around
in a MacWrite document, as opposed to
making spot corrections, some other tech-
niques come into play.
• The best way to select a whole para-
graph is to drag the pointer down the left
margin. This procedure selects an entire
line at a time and ensures that you’ll in-
clude the invisible but crucial Return char-
acter at the end of each paragraph.
• If you’re selecting a large portion of
text, make use of the Shift key to extend
your selection. As explained in the Mac-
Write manual, you first make a selection in
the normal way, then move to another por-
tion of your document, hold down the Shift
key, and click the mouse button. Every-
thing from your original selection to the
position of the pointer will be selected. You
can use the scroll box to get to the end
point of your selection. This technique is
best for selecting everything from a point
in the middle of a document to the end or
the beginning.
• Keep in mind that double-clicking is
an accurate way to select whole words and
that it works with extended selections as
well. Double-click to start your selection on
a word boundary. Then move to the end of
the area to be selected and Shift-double-
click.
• By ail means, develop the habit of
using the % -x, §§ -c, and §§ -v key com-
binations while you are editing. The Edit
menu lists these special key combinations
next to the corresponding command. Once
a portion of text is selected, holding down
the % key and the x key simultaneously
cuts the selection to the Clipboard. -c
copies the selection to the Clipboard, and
§€ -V pastes whatever is in the Clipboard at
the current pointer position. The advan-
tage of using these §€ -key combinations
(rather than choosing Cut, Copy, or Paste
from the Edit menu) is that you can keep
the pointer positioned within the text area.
If you use these shortcuts for cutting and
pasting, your editing efficiency will triple.
• Remember the Undo command.
This powerful MacWrite feature lets you
reverse cuts and pastes. Undo will also take
back the characters typed since the pre-
vious program command. This capability
can be useful if you start typing (and there-
Maovorld lOS
Hands On
Chart of Typefaces
MacWrite provides you with
almost two thousand possible
combinations of type fonts,
sizes, and styles. Although
you’ll be using only a fraction
of those combinations, you’ll
still have to exercise more than
a little discretion in making
your typographic selections.
The following chart reproduces
printed output from a Mac-
Write document, showing
some of the most legible and
attractive combinations.
New York is a serif font suitable for text. It prints best in;
9poini- ABCDEFGabcdefgI23'i5 ABCDEFGabcdelgl2345 ABCDEFGabcdefg ! 23^3
12 point - ABCDEFGabcdefg 123^5 ABCDEFGabcdefgl2345
ABCDEFGahcdefg 123^.5 ABOTFGilbedsirg ! 2M5
1 4 point - ABCDEFGabcdefg 12345 ABCDEFCabcdefg 12345
ABCDEFGabcdefg 123^5
18 point - ABCDEabcdel234 ABCDEabcdel234
A BCDEabcde!234mW^%M E 2 S 4
24 point - ABCabcl23 ABCabcl23
ABCabcl23^t^<S> 1 %
Geneva is a sans-serif font suitable for text. It prints best in.
9 point - ABCDEFGabcdefg 12345 ABCDEFGabcderg 12345 ABCDEF6at)Cderg ! 2345
12 point - ..ABCDEFGabcdefg] 2345 ABCDEFGabcdefg 1 2345
ABCDEFGabcdefg !2Jd5 ASCDEFGabcdefgl 2345
14 point - ABCDEFGabcdefg 12345 ABCDEFGabcdefg 1 2345
A5CDEF6at)cdefgl2J45 AlCOlFfilBtoeisIff II 2341
18 point - ABCDEabcdel234 ABCDEabcde1234
ABCDEabcde /i’JVAiCDEibedi 1 2M
24 point - ABCabc 1 23 ABCabc 1 23
ABCabc /i’JABCabC 1 23
106 Volume 1, Number 1
Toronto is an expanded serif font. It prints best in:
12 point - ABCDEFQabcdefg 12345 ABCDEFGobcdefg 12345
ABCDEFGabcdefg 12345 I
H point - ABCEDabcdefg 12345 ABCDEabcdefg 12345
ABCDEaI>cdefgI2J45 AlOOlgi&eisgglSS^i
1 8 point - ABCDEobcde 1 23^ ABCDEabcde 1 234
ABCD£adcde/2JiP^m^^^ 1 214
24 point - ABCabc 1 23 ABCabc 1 23
ABCabcJ 23^^^m I li
flonaco is a isonofont (ail letters same width), it prints best In:
9 point - f©CDEFGobcdefg 12345 flBCIMEF6abcdefg 12343 ABCD£FOatcaefg f2S45
12 point - flBCDEFGabcdefg12345 flBCDEF6abcdefg12345
BBCDEFGabcdefg 12345 S§e0gF®fflfewisir8)ii834i
yenice is a cursive font. Tt prints test in:
12 point - ylBCD£mo6cftefgl2345 «4fiCDEraabcdefql2345
ABCDEfoBcde/glESdS
Chicago is the Mac's system font, it prints best in:
12 point - RBCDEF6abcdefg 12345 RBCDEFGabcilergl2345
BBCDEFSatcdBfg 12345 QID©i)Ill?0@l!)eai^
2^5
Athens is a displag font. It prints best in;
18 point - ABCDEabcde 1 234 ABCDEabcde 1234
HBCnEabcdBl23im.
m
lUnbon tK an Cnglt^ll fitnt. It ptintil in;
1 $ point > 9 | 6 €IBeabt))el 2 S 4 9 ii<iBCibtbet 234
M0£9€»MeUS4
Macworld 107
Hands On
fore inserting) in the middle of a para-
graph and want to restore the paragraph to
its original state. Undo can be invoked
from the keyboard using §§ -z.
• Remember that there are four places
to which you can move and store text while
you are editing: the Clipboard, the Scrap-
book, the beginning of your document,
and the end of your document. Each loca-
tion has specihc uses. The Clipboard is vol-
atile — its contents are replaced with each
successive Cut or Copy. The Scrapbook
stores text (or pictures) permanently and is
convenient for inserting stock text selec-
tions several times within a document.
Don’t overlook the beginning and end of
your file as convenient holding areas for
text that you know you will be working
into your document at some point.
• If you are doing a good deal of cut-
ting and pasting, you might want to set up
your screen with both the text area and the
Clipboard in full view, serving as a perma-
nent on-screen reference (see Figure 2).
• The same screen arrangement is
helpful for aligning the page, date, and
time icons properly in the header or footer
windows. With both the header and footer
windows in view, you can adjust the icons
and then click the text window to see the
effects immediately.
Searching
The MacWrite Find and Change func-
tions are useful if you need to change the
name of a character throughout your short
story, but some of the best uses for the
Search capability don’t involve changes
per se.
• If your text includes a key word that
is long or difficult to type, substitute a dis-
tinctive, easily typed symbol while you’re
doing your initial writing. Then change it
during your final edit. For example, you
could use the @ symbol and later change it
to Tchaikovsky.
• MacWrite does not feature place
markers, but you can make use of the
Search function to guide you through your
^ 4 File Edit Search Format Font Style
Clipboard
the real revolution in v/riting has only just begun.
Q
ID!
Mac lllriting
The current common wisdom accepts that
computers have revolutionized the craft of writing. A
half hour of creating words with the Macintosh will
convince you, however, that I
O
Lhe real revolution in
Up to now, word processors -- for all their
editing, searching, sorting, and paginating power —
have remained greatly glorified electronic typewriters.
But with the arrival of Macintosh, the scope of
computer writing skills is no longer confined to
stringing characters together. The power to control
typography and format has been put directly in the
Figure 2
Having the Clipboard in full view provides an
on-screen reference during cut-and-paste
operations
Search Format Font Style
Mac liJriting
ion wisdom accepts that
ionized the craft of writing. A
>rds with the Macintosh will
convince you, however, that the real revolution in
writing has only just begun.
Up to now, word processors — for all their
editing, searching, sorting, and paginating power —
have remained greatly glorified electronic typewriters.
But with the arrival of Macintosh, the scope of
computer writing skills is no longer confined to
stringing characters together. The power to control
typography and format has been put directly in the
hands of every writer. The art of writing has never
been so dramatically changed since Gutenberg.
Q
Figure 3
Copying a ruler with a specified format into
the Clipboard for insertion elsewhere in the
document
108
Volume 1, Number 1
document. If you are moving a selected
portion of text to the beginning or end of
your document, embed a special symbol,
such as the + + symbol, in the text before
repositioning the pointer to complete the
paste operation. Then you can find your
original position easily by searching for the
+ + symbol.
• When you want to replace a word
globally throughout your document with
the Change All command, be careful that
you don’t accidentally replace fragments of
longer words. Suppose, for example, that
you decided to change all occurrences of
Mac to Macintosh. If the word Macintosh
were already in your document, it would
come out as Macintoshintosh. To avoid this
situation, you could include spaces as part
of the Find string: Af^c[space]. Then your
search would look only for whole words.
However, your search would not find oc-
currences of Mac at the end of a sentence.
Another strategy would be to change
all instances of Macintosh to Mac first, and
then change all the Macs back. You would
still have to search for A/(^c[space], how-
ever.
• After wading through the above sce-
narios, you should see clearly that global
changes can have unexpected results. It’s
usually wise to take the time to confirm
each modification with MacWrites
Change, then Find option.
Formatting
MacWrite has powerful formatting ca-
pabilities that let you set margins, indenta-
tion, tabs, line spacing, and type styles. You
can streamline your formatting chores by
using some of the following techniques.
• Most writers have standard writing
applications — letters, memos, draft man-
uscripts — that require different formats.
Take the time to determine the best format
for each of these situations, then save the
formats in separate files and use one of
those files to start each type of writing
project.
For example, suppose you like to pre-
pare drafts with 2-inch margins on both
sides of the page, double-spaced, using 14-
point Athens type. Start MacWrite and
open a new document. You’ll see a blank
document called Untitled in tho MacWrite
window. Without typing any text, move the
left margin marker to 2 inches and the
right to 6Vi inches, click on the double-
space icon, and select 14-point Athens type.
Then choose Save from the File menu and
name the document Draft Format. Now
every time you want to begin a draft, start
MacWrite by double-clicking on the icon
labeled Draft Format. You’ll automatically
create a document with your chosen for-
matting features.
When you are ready to save your doc-
ument, don’t choose the Save command.
Instead, choose Save As . . . from the File
m\\\\\\\\w^
The Scrapbook
stores text (or pic-
tures) permanently
and is convenient for
inserting stock text
selections.
menu. You’ll be asked to give a name under
which to save the current document. At
this point you should give your written
document a distinctive name, such as Draft
Story 23.
Once you’ve copied and saved the
document under a new name, choose Quit
from the File menu, making sure that you
don’t save your original Draft Format docu-
ment with all the text you added. The next
time you want to write a draft, start with
the Draft Format document again; it will
once again present a clean slate, formatted
according to your specifications.
• You can expand the above technique
to create a correspondence format file that
produces your own customized letterhead,
complete with a MacPaint graphic, your
address, and the date.
• If you are creating a document that
uses several formats, such as an outline or
a screenplay, you’ll want to be able to
switch formats quickly and easily. Before
you start writing, make up the different
rulers that you’ll need and place them in a
“ruler well” at the beginning or end of
your working file. When you need a certain
format, such as indented single-spaced, you
can go to the well, copy the appropriate
ruler to the Clipboard, and paste it in place
(see Figure 3). This technique is much
faster than inserting new rulers and adjust-
ing the margins each time you need them.
(To select a ruler, click on the portion of
the ruler with the inch markings.)
• Note that the rulers carry formatting
information, but not type style and size
specifications. If you want to make those el-
ements part of your multiple formats, you
should include at least one blank line (two
Returns) with each ruler before you copy it
to the Clipboard. Then when you paste in
the ruler you’ll include a spot in your doc-
ument that carries the appropriate type
specifications. As you insert text at that
spot, it will assume the specified format.
This technique will work, but it can be dif-
ficult at first to know exactly where the
boundaries are between different type
fonts and styles. Experiment and practice.
Bear in mind that the MacWrite win-
dow is not as wide as a standard sheet of
paper. In relation to an 8!/2-inch-wide sheet
of paper, the MacWrite ruler starts at 1 inch
and ends at about TA inches. Thus, there
are margins beyond what you see on the
screen. If you adjust the screen to show
pleasing margins, your printed text may be
too narrow. (Don’t be afraid to format your
documents with adequate “white space,”
however. )
• You should also note that Mac-
Writes default format (the way the
program starts out, without any user
specification) does not include any head-
ers or footers. Unless you specify other-
wise, your printed document will start at
the top of each page and continue to the
bottom. If you want top and bottom mar-
gins, call up the Header and Footer win-
dows and insert two or three Returns
in each. These specifications can be
included in your document format files,
as noted above.
Macworld
109
Hands On: Programming
SimpleSketch
Programming the Mac in
BASIC and Pascal
Lon Poole
SimpleSketch is a short program that dem-
onstrates the kind of control the Macintosh
User Interface Toolbox gives you over the
Mac, whether you program in Pascal or
BASIC. It lets you construct rectangles of
any size in the program’s output window.
You use the mouse to specify the top-right
and bottom-left corners of the rectangle.
One version of the program is written in
Macintosh Pascal (MacPascal), another in
Microsoft BASIC (MBASIC), and a third in
Macintosh BASIC (MacBASIC). After ex-
ploring each version of the program, you’ll
learn how to modify the original program
to draw ovals and circles in a way that Mac-
Paint doesn’t duplicate.
Using the Program
Drawing rectangles with Simple-
Sketch is the same as drawing them with
MacPaint. First, you move the pointer to
the spot where you want to place the top-
left corner of the rectangle and press the
mouse button. The program remembers
those coordinates. Then you move the
pointer to the spot where you want to place
the bottom-right corner of the rectangle
and release the mouse button. Figure 1
shows the type of objects SimpleSketch
can draw.
As long as you hold down the mouse
button, a flickering outline shows the cur-
rent size and shape of the rectangle. To
produce the flickering effect, the program
draws a rectangle in black and then quickly
erases the image by redrawing the rec-
tangle in white. The program keeps draw-
ing and erasing the rectangle as long as
you hold down the mouse button. Moving
the mouse while you hold down its button
modifies a rectangle’s proportions by
changing the location of its bottom-right
corner. The program recognizes those
changes and resizes the flickering outline
accordingly. When you release the mouse
button, the program redraws the rectangle
permanently in black, using the propor-
tions of the last flickering outline.
MacPascal SimpleSketch
Listing 1 shows the MacPascal version
of the SimpleSketch program. Notice that
the command words are in boldface and
The Simple-
Sketch program uses
the frameRect pro-
cedure from the
QuickDraw Toolbox
unit to draw rect-
angles and squares.
the program lines are indented. MacPascal
does this automatically to make the listing
easier to read. Capitalization is optional,
except in the boldface words. MacPascal
considers an uppercase letter and its
lowercase counterpart to be the same char-
acter (unless they appear between quota-
tion marks). Thus, you can use capital
letters to improve program readability.
MacPascal, like other versions of Pascal,
does not require line numbers. (Note: the
numbers to the left of the program lines in
the listing pertain only to the following de-
scription of the program.)
1. Declares that four variables will have in-
teger values. Variables left and top will
keep track of the coordinates for the point
at the top-left corner of the rectangle. Vari-
ables right and bottom will monitor the
coordinates of the bottom-right corner.
2. Sets the size of the pen point that will
draw the rectangles. Procedure penSize is
predefined; its first parameter sets the pen-
point width and its second parameter the
pen-point height.
3. Starts the program loop that repeats the
program endlessly so that you can draw as
many rectangles as you like. (To halt the
program, choose the Halt command or
click the displayed Halt button.)
4. Sets a pen mode that enables a flickering
outline to be drawn. The predefined pen-
Mode procedure is a standard element of
the QuickDraw Toolbox unit. Its single pa-
rameter defines how an object to be drawn
will interact with the existing images in the
window. The patXor option lets a program
erase an object without disturbing other
images by displaying the object on top of
itself
5. Starts a loop that waits for you to press
the mouse button. Before you press the
mouse button, another predefined pro-
cedure, getMouse, monitors the mouse
location and assigns the coordinates to var-
iables left and top. When you press the
mouse button, the loop ends, fixing the
top-left corner of the rectangle.
110 Volume 1, Number 1
Figure 1
Sample output from
SimpleSketch.
6. Starts a loop that repeats as long as you
hold down the mouse button.
7. Assigns the latest coordinates for the bot-
tom-right corner of the rectangle to vari-
ables right and bottom.
8. Uses the predehned procedure frame-
Rect to draw the rectangle defined by the
current corner coordinates.
9. Draws the same rectangle a second time
at the same location. Because the drawing
mode at this time is patXor, the second
drawing erases the first, without disturbing
the rest of the screen. As a result, you see
the rectangle flash briefly on the screen.
10. When you finally release the mouse but-
ton, the program changes the drawing
mode, again with the penMode procedure.
This time it uses the patCopy mode, which
always makes black lines black, regardless
of what they are drawn over.
11. This time the frameRect procedure
draws the rectangle permanently at its final
location.
12. The until statement marks the bound-
ary of the loop started by the repeat state-
ment. The end statement marks the end of
the program.
Microsoft BASIC SimpleSketch
The output of the MBASIC version of
SimpleSketch will look the same to its user
as the MacPascal version (see Listing 2).
Notice that all the program lines have line
numbers. Also, this listing uses capital let-
ters everywhere except in program re-
marks. You can type the program into the
Mac using any combination of upper- and
lowercase letters, but MBASIC will convert
lowercase letters to capitals in the listing
(unless they are part of a program remark
or enclosed by quotation marks).
Here’s how the MBASIC program
works, line by line:
20. Declares that all variables starting with
the letters L, T, R, and B will have integer
values. Alternatively, this statement could
be omitted and the name of each integer
variable suffixed with a % character.
30. Clears the output window.
40. Sets the size of the pen point. The first
parameter oiPENSIZE defines the width;
the second, the height.
50. Sets the pen mode. Mode 10, as it is
called in MBASIC, works the same as the
patXOR mode in MacPascal. In this mode,
drawing the same object twice in the same
place erases it without erasing other
images.
60-70. The MOUSE function has different
effects depending on the value of the
parameter passed to it. MOUSE(l) and
MOUSE(2) determine the mouse’s current
coordinates, and variables LEFT and TOP
keep track of them.
80. Until you press the mouse button, the
program loops between lines 60 and 80.
MOUSE( 0) checks the mouse button status
and has a value of 0 if the button has not
been clicked since the last time MOUSE(O)
was executed.
Maov^orld 111
Hands On
90-100. When you press the mouse button
to select the top-left corner of the rec-
tangle you want to draw, the program goes
into another loop. First, it gets the mouse
coordinates and assigns them to variables
RIGHT 2ind BOTTOM.
110. MBASIC expects the rectangle s corner
coordinates in the first four elements of an
integer array; this program uses array R( ).
120. Calls Toolbox procedure frameRect to
draw the rectangle whose coordinates are
in array R( ).
130. The second call x.o frameRect erases
the rectangle just displayed; the result is a
flashing rectangle.
140. As long as you hold down the mouse
button, the program loops between lines
90 and 140, flashing rectangles sized by the
current mouse coordinates. MOUSE(O) has
a value of -1 as long as the mouse button is
held down.
150-160. Changes the drawing mode and
permanently draws the rectangle at its final
location.
170. Branches back to wait until you select
the top-left corner of another rectangle.
(To halt the program, press the % and c
keys simultaneously.)
MacBASIC SimpleSketch
From a program user’s standpoint, the
MacBASIC version of SimpleSketch works
just like the MacPascal and MBASIC ver-
sions (see Listing 3). But a comparison of
the different versions of this program re-
veals disparities even between the two
BASIC versions. Unlike MBASIC, MacBASIC
does not require line numbers. (Note: the
numbers to the left of the program lines in
the listing pertain only to the following de-
scription of the program.) Also, MacBASIC
displays listings in upper- and lowercase
letters, although it treats capital letters and
their lowercase counterparts as the same
characters (unless they are between quota-
tion marks). MacBASIC, unlike MacPascal,
does not automatically format listings. To
indent program lines for better readability,
you have to type the spaces yourself by
pressing the space bar.
program SimpleSketch
uar
1 top, left, bottom, right : integer;
begin
2 penSized, 1);
5 repeat
4 penMode(patKor);
5 while button = false do
getMouse(left,top);
6 while button do
begin
7 getMousetright, bottom);
8 frameRect(top, left, bottom, right);
9 frameRectttop, left, bottom, right);
end ;
10 penMode(patCopg);
11 frameRect(top, left, bottom, right);
12 until false;
end.
Listing 1
MacPascal version of SimpleSketch. Command
words are in boldface and program lines are
indented.
10 REM SimpleSketch Program
20 DEFINT L,T,R,B
50 CLS
40 COLL PENSI2E(1,1)
50 CRLL PENMODE(IO)
60 LEFT=M0USE(U
70 T0P=M0USE(2)
80 IF M0USE(0)=0 THEN GOTO 60
90 RIGHT=M0USE(1)
100 B0n0M=M0USE(2)
1 1 0 R(1 )=LEFT:R(0)=T0P:R(3)=RIGHT:R(2)=B0n0M
120 CRLL FRRMERECT(URRPTR(R(0)))
130 CRLL FRRMERECT(URRPTR(R(0)))
140 IF M0USE(0)=-1 THEN GOTO 90
150 CRLL PENMOOE(B)
160 CRLL FRRMERECT(URRPTR(R(0)))
170 GOTO 50
Listing 2
Microsoft BASIC version of SimpleSketch.
MBASIC uses capital letters everywhere
except in program remarks.
112 Volume 1, Number 1
Notice that the MacBASIC program
does not declare any variable types. It de-
termines a variable’s type from the last
character of its name. All of the variables in
this program have a % character suffix,
which identifies them as integer types.
The MacBASIC program works as
follows:
1. Sets the pen-point size. The set pensize
statement has two arguments: the first sets
the pen-point width, and the second the
height.
2. Starts the main program loop. The pro-
gram goes through the loop once each
time you draw a square.
3. Sets the pen mode that lets the program
stretch and shrink the rectangle as it fol-
lows the mouse movement.
4. Waits for you to press the mouse button,
thereby fixing the top-left corner of the
rectangle you want to draw
5. Gets the coordinates of the top-left cor-
ner from functions mouseX and mouseY
and assigns them to variables left% and
top%.
6. This line has a label, Drawagain, that a
later statement branches to as long as you
hold down the mouse button.
7. Assigns the coordinates of the current
bottom-right corner to variables bottom%
and right%.
8. Flashes the rectangle defined by the cur-
rently selected corner points. The first fra-
meRect statement draws the rectangle, and
the second erases it.
9. Repeats the rectangle-flashing loop as
long as you hold down the mouse button.
10. The program changes the pen mode to
8 when you release the mouse button. This
mode, which is the same as MacPascal’s
patCopy mode, always draws black lines in
black. This time ih^frameRect procedure
draws the rectangle permanently at its final
location.
1 -
2
3
4
5
6
7-
8
9-
10
II-
TI
set pensize 1,1
do
— set penmode 1 0
— btmuait
left7o=mouseH
top7o=mouseV
— Oraiiiagain: right7o=mouseK
bottom7o=mouseV
— I — frameRect Ieft?o,top7o;right7o,bottom7o
' — frameRect Ieft7o,top7o;right7o,bottom7o
— if mouseb then goto Draioagain:
1 — set penmode 8
I — frameRect Ieft7o,top7o;right7o,bottom7o
-loop
Listings
MacBASIC version of SimpleSketch. Unlike
MBASIC, MacBASIC does not require line
numbers.
OvalSketch determines the top, left, bottom, and
right coordinates given the center point and any
corner point of the rectangle into which an
oval fits.
Macworld
113
Hands On
11. The program branches back to the ear-
lier do statement so that you can draw an-
other rectangle. (To halt the program,
choose the Halt command. )
The Oval Alternative
Like MacPaint, the original Sim-
pleSketch program uses the frameRect
procedure from the QuickDraw Toolbox
unit to draw rectangles and squares. With
MacPaint, you can also draw an oval by
selecting the rectangle it fits in, first choos-
ing the upper-left corner and then the bot-
tom-right corner. The key to drawing ovals
and circles is another QuickDraw pro-
frameOval.
Drawing ovals the same ^ 2 iy Mac-
Paint does is easy in the MacPascal pro-
gram; simply change the procedure name
in each of the three program lines in which
it occurs. With a little more work, you can
enhance the original SimpleSketch pro-
gram so it does something that can’t be
done in MacPaint. Listing 4 shows a Mac-
Pascal program, OvalSketch, that lets you
draw an oval by selecting the center point
and any corner of the rectangle into which
it fits. Figure 2 shows how it works, and Fig-
ure 3 illustrates the program output.
The following description explains
how OvalSketch works, with emphasis on
the modifications:
1. This program needs some additional var-
iables to keep track of the center point, the
current-corner point, and the horizontal
and vertical distances between the center
and corner points.
2. Notice that this program will draw
thicker lines than the original.
3. Starts a loop that lets you draw ovals
indefinitely.
4. Sets the pen mode for flashing interim
ovals.
Figure 3
Sample output from OvalSketch.
6. Starts the loop that repeats as long as
you hold down the mouse button.
7. Assigns the coordinates of the current-
corner point to variables cornerX and
cornerY.
8. Computes the distance from center to
corner. Without the A.85 function, dis-
tances are negative when the corner is
above or to the left of the center point.
9. Computes the coordinates for the cor-
ners of the rectangle in which to draw the
selected oval or circle. The top-left corner
is above and to the left of the center point,
and the bottom-right corner is below and
to the right of center.
10. Flashes the oval defined by the current
center and corner points.
Further Experimentation
The simplicity of these programs may
fool you into thinking that programming
an application like MacPaint wouldn’t be
so tough after all. To keep things in per-
spective, try modifying SimpleSketch or
OvalSketch to do the following:
• Use thicker or thinner lines.
• Draw rectangles above or to the left
of the starting point (SimpleSketch).
• Draw circles by selecting a center
point and any point on the circumference.
The pointer must stay on the circum-
ference as you drag it away from the center.
(Hint: use the sqr function and the fact that
the length of the hypotenuse of a right tri-
angle is equal to the square root of the sum
of the squares of its sides.)
5. Waits for you to select the center point by 11. Changes the pen mode and draws the
pressing the mouse button. oval or circle in its final proportions.
12. Allows you to draw another oval. (To
halt the program, choose the Halt com-
mand or click the displayed Halt button.)
114
Volume 1, Number 1
• Draw a variety of other shapes
using the QuickDraw procedures/ram^-
RoundRect, paintRoundRect, paint-
Oval, and paintRect in place of
frameRect.
• Draw straight lines. Use the Quick-
Draw procedure moveTo(x,y) to anchor a
starting point and HneTo(x,y) to draw a
line from there to another point.
• Allow freehand drawing.
• Display a palette of drawing options.
Allow the program user to use the mouse
to select the line thickness and the shape of
the object to draw.
These experiments only begin to ex-
plore the ways you can enhance the basic
SimpleSketch program. As you work out
ways to effect these improvements, new
ideas will probably come to mind. Were
you to continue adding features to the pro-
gram, you would end up with thousands of
program lines distributed among dozens of
independent procedures that would collec-
tively provide sketching and drawing capa-
bilities similar to those in MacPaint.
Macintosh Pascal
Think Technologies
Liberty Square
Danvers, MA 01923
6171777-5226
Distributed by Apple Computer, Inc.
List price: $99
Macintosh BASIC
Apple Computer, Inc.
20525 Mariani Ave.
Cupertino, CA 95014
8001538-9696; in California
800 / 662-9238
List price: $99
2
5
4
5
7-
8
10
11 -
12
program OualSketch;
uar
— I — centerH, centerV, cornerH, cornerV : integer;
' — ^distance, Vdistance : integer;
left, top, right, bottom : integer;
begin
— penSize(2,2l;
— repeat
penModelpatKorl;
uihile button=fal$e do
getMouselcenterK, centerV);
uihile button do
begin
getMousetcornerH, cornerV);
1 — Kdistance := ab$(centerK - cornerH);
' — Vdistance := absfcenterV - cornerV);
left := centerH - Hdistance;
— top := centerV - Vdistance;
— right := centerH + Hdistance;
— bottom := centerV + Vdistance;
frameOuaUtop, left, bottom, right);
end;
— I — penMode(patCopg);
* — frameOuaKtop, left, bottom, right);
— until false;
end.
Listing 4
OvalSketch, a MacPascal program that lets you
draw an oval by selecting the center point and
any corner of a rectangle into which it fits.
Microsoft BASIC
Microsoft Corporation
10700 Nor thup Way
Bellevue, WA 98004
206/828-8080
List price: $150
Macworld
115
Hands On; Programming
The 64 k Treasure Chest
Lon
Apple has gone to unprece-
dented lengths to attract soft-
ware developers to the Mac
and to persuade them to
adopt the Mac desktop en-
vironment as the standard
user interface. The benefits of
this system are that developers
can create better programs
with less effort and that users
will have a familiar working
environment for all their Mac
applications.
The usefulness of any computer depends
on a wide variety of quality software. Apple
has done several things to encourage
people to develop application programs
for the Macintosh, including the following:
• Developing guidelines for a consis-
tent user interface.
• Supplying programs that implement
the user guidelines.
• Using an operating system that gives
application programmers extraordinary
control over system events.
• Designing a unique way to greatly
simplify the editing of dialog and menu
wording.
• Making available a speedy and
powerful development system based on
the Lisa.
• Providing inexpensive expert advice
and support to registered developers.
User Interface Guidelines
Designers of interactive application
programs spend a great deal of time wor-
rying about the user interface — the way
the program interacts with its users. For
the Mac, Apple has done the research and
development, made the decisions, and
come up with a flexible interface suitable
for almost all applications. The Mac user
interface, based on the desktop environ-
ment, includes icons, windows, pull-down
menus, mouse pointing, displayed control
buttons, dialog and alert boxes, basic text
editing, and cut-and-paste editing (see “A
Tour of the Mac Desktop”). The Macintosh
user interface guidelines manual defines
the standard desktop environment. By fol-
lowing the advice in the manual, you can
get a consistent user interface that people
will understand and accept. Adopting the
Mac user interface guidelines allows you to
focus on your strong point — the applica-
tion itself.
The User Interface Toolbox
Adopting the Mac user interface is one
thing; implementing it is another. Imagine
writing the programs that manage the
Mac’s desktop environment. Few applica-
tion programmers would bother to work
with the Mac user interface if they had to
write those programs themselves.
Apple realized that simple truth, wrote
the programs to manage the desktop en-
vironment, put them in a 64K ROM, and
called the set of codes the User Interface
Toolbox. This 64K treasure chest means
you’ll never have to design or code a user
interface for the Mac.
Here’s how the Toolbox works within
an application. The application program
uses one part of the Toolbox to poll system
events such as mouse and keyboard input.
When the program user presses a key,
clicks the mouse, or inserts a disk, the ap-
plication uses another part of the Toolbox
to make the Mac react appropriately. The
application sends a message that describes
the event to the appropriate Toolbox pro-
cedure, which then effects a change on the
electronic desktop. Of course, an applica-
tion does not have to use the Toolbox to re-
act; it can always use its own procedures.
Actually, Apple came up with more
procedures to put in the Toolbox than
would fit in the 64K ROM, so some of the
Toolbox units will take up part of RAM if
you choose to use them (see “The Tool-
box” for a brief description of the Toolbox
units).
116 Volume 1, Number 1
gram. Your program must share the menu
bar with the interpreter and has limited
control of the windows. Eventually, an en-
hanced version of MacPascal that features
full Toolbox support will be available.
Within six months of the Mac’s intro-
duction date, you should be able to circum-
vent these problems. Apple currently has
two plans on the drawing board that will
make full application development using
Programming Languages
You can write some application pro-
grams in Macintosh Pascal (MacPascal) or
Macintosh BASIC (MacBASIC). Both are in-
terpreted languages, which provide an
ideal debugging and fine-tuning environ-
ment. You can change your program and
immediately run it to see the results of the
changes.
There are some trade-offs in using
MacBASIC or MacPascal. For one, inter-
preted languages are slower than compiled
languages; however, both MacBASIC and
MacPascal are fast enough for many ap-
plications. Also, the first versions of Mac-
Pascal and MacBASIC cannot turn over full
control of the screen to an application pro-
This 64K trea-
sure chest means
you’ll never have to
design or code a user
interface for the Mac.
MacPascal a reality. One solution uses two
Macs; you write and edit a MacPascal pro-
gram on one Mac and run it on an intercon-
nected second Mac. The interpreter’s
menus and windows appear on the first
Mac, and the application’s menus, win-
dows, and other graphics on the second.
The other MacPascal development system
uses one Mac. In this case, the MacPascal
program takes over control of the menus
and windows from the interpreter.
You can also develop Mac applications
using Microsoft BASIC (MBASIC). Such ap-
plications will be subject to similar limita-
tions as those written in MacBASIC or
MacPascal, notably the inability to control
the menu bar and all windows indepen-
dently. MBASIC does afford a degree of
compatibility with other computer systems
that have versions of MBASIC. (See “Pro-
gramming Preview” for a review of Mac-
Pascal, MacBASIC, and MBASIC.)
For now, most serious programmers
will write Mac applications on a Lisa devel-
opment system. This system consists of a
Lisa with a hard disk, the Lisa Pascal com-
piler and linker, a procedure and function
library for the Mac, a Mac on which to test
the application program, and a cable to in-
terconnect the Lisa and the Mac. (If you are
developing more than one application, you
may need more than one hard disk drive.)
To work on an application, you write a Pas-
cal program on the Lisa, compile it, and
send it to the Mac for execution. While it
runs on the Mac, you can look at the listing
on the Lisa.
Macworld 117
Hands On
A developer’s kit will include all the
tools you need to develop a Mac applica-
tion program on a Lisa. Among the tools
will be several complete, working sample
application programs written in Lisa Pascal
on 514-inch Lisa disks; Mac utility pro-
grams, including a resource file editor, text
font editor, icon editor, and screen
snapshot maker, all on Mac disks; a pro-
cedure and function library for Mac
programs, on Lisa disks; and Inside Macin-
tosh, a comprehensive technical manual
containing user interface guidelines and
Toolbox procedures. Some of these items
may also be sold separately.
Apple plans to offer programming lan-
guages other than Pascal and BASIC.
Within three months of the Mac’s introduc-
tion an assembler and debugger will be
available to those programmers who prefer
coding directly in native 68000 assembly
language. Aficionados of the C language
can expect a compiler sometime within
the first six months. The C compiler will
make application program development
feasible on a single Mac.
Developer Support
Apple has two programs that support
developers. If you are actively developing
software for the Mac, you can sign up for
the Certified Developer Program. This pro-
gram entitles you to a discount on Apple
products, a subscription to a newsletter, in-
vitations to technical seminars, and more.
The Certified Developer Program itself is
free, although you must meet certain crite-
ria that establish your authenticity as a pro-
gram developer. A fee will be charged for
attending the seminars.
Certified developers can join the Reg-
istered Developer Program by paying a
nominal yearly fee. Members of this pro-
gram receive an electronic mail account
that provides a bulletin board service and
ongoing, high-level technical support from
Apple product divisions.
Apple will also offer a course con-
sisting of four or five in-depth classes to
serious developers who use the Lisa devel-
opment system. Enrollment will be re-
stricted to advanced Pascal programmers
and class size will be limited to around 20.
Within six months after the introduction of
the Mac, Apple will offer courses in Eu-
rope, Australia, and several major cities in
the United States. Schedule announce-
ments for the first course will go to regis-
The Toolbox
The User Interface Toolbox in-
cludes hundreds of procedures,
which have been grouped into
15 units. Some units have just a
few procedures, and others,
dozens. The grouping is purely
logical, not functional, and ex-
ists mainly to give application
programmers an organized
concept of the Toolbox. Pro-
grammers can freely choose
any combination of Toolbox
procedures from the various
units and use them in any
order. Naturally, not all com-
binations and sequences do
something useful, and a few
combinations will even crash
the system. So along with the
freedom and flexibility built
into the Toolbox goes a degree
of responsibility: programmers
must be careful to avoid those
procedural pitfalls.
Not all programming lan-
guages support every Toolbox
unit, let alone every procedure.
Lisa Pascal, in combination
with a Macintosh procedure
and function library, does sup-
port the full Toolbox. Assembly
language and C programmers
also have full access to the
Toolbox. The first release of
MacPascal, however, omits
some of the rarely used, com-
plicated, and potentially disas-
trous procedures, making the
Toolbox easier to use and pre-
cluding inadvertent system
crashes. For the same reasons,
MacBASIC and MBASIC also
limit Toolbox support.
The descriptions of the Tool-
box units that follow will give
you an idea of what an applica-
tion program can do on the
Mac. The User Interface Tool-
box manual has more complete
information about the Toolbox
units and the individual pro-
cedures in them.
• Control Manager displays
buttons, check boxes, radio
buttons, scroll bars, dials, and
other application-specific con-
trols. It can also determine a
control’s setting, change the
setting, and indicate when
someone uses the mouse to
operate a control.
• CoreEdit handles sophisti-
cated, paragraph-oriented text
editing and formatting. It sup-
ports rulers, which determine
margin justification and other
parameters.
• Desk Manager supports
the use of desk accessories
from an application. Standard
desk accessories include the
Calculator, NotePad, Scrap-
book, Clock, Key Caps, Puzzle,
and Control Panel. You can also
define your own accessories.
• Dialog Manager displays
dialog and alert boxes and re-
ceives user responses to them.
• Error Handler provides a
standard alert box for serious
system errors that the applica-
tion cannot handle.
• Event Manager reports
mouse and keyboard activity,
disk insertion, and other sys-
tem events to application pro-
grams and other Toolbox units.
It is also used for communica-
tions between Toolbox units.
• Font Manager primarily
assists the QuickDraw unit in
drawing text. Given the charac-
118 Volume 1, Number 1
ters, font, style, size, scaling fac-
tor, and output device, the Font
Manager supplies the pattern
of dots that will draw the re-
quested text.
• Menu Manager displays
the menu bar. On command, it
also displays a pull-down menu
and takes the user’s order.
• QuickDraw draws straight
lines, rectangles, rounded-cor-
ner rectangles, circles, ovals,
arcs, wedges, polygons, and
arbitrary shapes, all either
hollow or solid. With a single
procedure call it can draw a
complex picture made up of
any combination of shapes and
lines.
QuickDraw, with the aid of
the Font Manager, also draws
proportionally spaced text in
any of several fonts. Characters
can be any of several sizes
(generally from 8 to 72 points)
and can be in any combination
of type styles including bold-
face, italic, underlined, and
outlined.
You can define multiple
drawing ports and easily switch
from one to another. Each port
has its own coordinate system,
cursor, character attributes, and
screen location. QuickDraw
provides complete image clip-
ping at the edges of a drawing
port.
You can also “draw” anything
into an off-screen memory
buffer, either for sending to
an output device or for super
high-speed display switching.
It does all of these things fast
enough to generate an interac-
tive graphic user interface,
animation, and complex text
displays.
• Resource Manager ac-
cesses information in resource
files that defines menus, fonts,
icons, dialog boxes, alert boxes,
or custom resources. Other
Toolbox procedures use the Re-
source Manager to read and
write resources. Consequently,
many application programs
never have to call the Resource
Manager directly.
• Scrap Manager helps an
application manipulate the
Clipboard for cutting and past-
ing between applications, desk
accessories, or an application
and a desk accessory.
• Segment Loader swaps
program segments between
memory and the disk, allowing
an application program to be
larger than 32K, which is the
maximum size of one segment.
• TextEdit supports basic
text editing, including word
wrap, selection, pointer move-
ment, insertion, deletion, and
replacement.
• Toolbox Utilities displays
icons and drags icons, custom
windows, or controls in re-
sponse to mouse movement.
Other utilities perform various
functions such as fixed-point
arithmetic, string manipulation,
and logical operations on bits.
• Window Manager creates
and manipulates windows on
the screen. It handles overlap-
ping windows and controls
window activation/deactiva-
tion, closing, sizing, dragging,
and scrolling.
tered Apple developers. Eventually, classes
will be held approximately every three
weeks at various locations around the
world.
Development languages and systems
will also be available from sources other
than Apple. Microsoft, for example, has
come up with its own development system,
centered around the C programming lan-
guage, that it uses for developing MwW-
plan, Multichart, Multifile, Microsoft
Word, and other Microsoft applications.
Microsoft will make its development sys-
tem available to those few developers with
whom it enters into a co-development
arrangement.
Program Development
Writing application programs that
make the most of the Mac requires a thor-
ough understanding of the desktop en-
vironment; you’ll have a lot to learn before
you can even create a window and print
your name in it. The user interface guide-
lines tell you what to do, and the Toolbox
gives you the capability to do it, but neither
one tells you how to do it. The trial-and-
error approach is probably the easiest way
to learn the “how-to” aspect. Start with a
For now, most
serious programmers
will write Mac applica-
tions on a Lisa devel-
opment system.
working application, look at its code,
see how and why it works, and use the
same techniques to develop your own
application.
The Lisa development system lets you
do more than get ideas from working pro-
grams; you can also get working program
code from them. Cut-and-paste editing
makes this possible. You start with a work-
ing program in one window, cut out the
parts unique to the application, and leave
just the skeleton of the program. You can
open more windows for other working
programs, from which you can cut sections
Macworld 119
Hands On
of code to paste into the skeletal program.
In another window you can write new pro-
cedures, and then cut and paste those rou-
tines into the skeletal program.
The Mac gives the application pro-
gram much more control over external
events than do most other systems. For ex-
ample, you can control the keyboard auto-
repeat feature from an application pro-
gram. No more coping with an operating
system that blasts characters at you if you
hold down a key. That’s the type of think-
ing that pervades the whole system. Your
application program controls system
events, not vice versa.
You’ll probably end up taking your
application through several rounds of
coding, refining the way it controls exter-
nal events, windows, icons, menus, and
other elements of the Mac user interface.
This situation is especially true if you are
converting an existing program written for
a computer with an old-fashioned charac-
ter-based user interface and a rigid operat-
ing system. It should be fairly easy to get
such a program running in its original
style, using one window as it formerly used
a whole screen and ignoring the menu bar.
Then you can plug in elements of the Mac
user interface one at a time, making your
program easier to use.
Jeffrey Harbers, manager of the Mac
applications development team at Micro-
soft, sums up program development for the
Mac this way: “The Mac is like a Lam-
borghini, in that almost anybody can go
out and sit in this car and look great. It
takes very little work to look like a star. It’s
just a matter of opening the door and get-
ting in, because they give you everything.
But the difference is that this Lamborghini
can do 160 miles per hour. It takes a little
more skill and training to take it up to
those speeds. People are going to find
that the major limit is the limit of their
imaginations.”
It won’t take long for software devel-
opers of ail kinds, from large companies to
individual programmers, to agree with Mr.
Harbers. They’ll accept the challenge and
learn how to exploit the User Interface
Toolbox to create some truly useful and
usable applications. The Mac’s electronic
desktop may well engender the next
breakthrough in personal computer
applications.
For more information on software
developer support, contact Apple
Computer, Inc., 20525 Mariani Are.,
Cupertino, CA 95014, 800/538-9696;
in California 800/662-9238.
Invitation
to Writers
>■■>■>■■■>■ Macworld invites writers to
submit articles for publication. Articles
should be focused to fit within the edi-
torial structure of the magazine.
AAAAAAAAAA Macwovld consists of four edi-
torial sections: State of the Art, Review,
Hands On, and Community. State
of the Art covers developing technol-
ogies for the Macintosh. In Review,
new Macintosh hardware and software
are critically and objectively analyzed
by experienced users. Hands On
offers how-to articles that instruct
readers on Macintosh applications.
Community articles describe the im-
pact of the Macintosh in workplaces,
schools, and homes.
Macworld accepts commen-
taries for the guest editorial depart-
ment, Notepad. User group members
are invited to submit articles on any
facet of their organization.
• • • • • Articles may be submitted by
query or as unsolicited manuscripts to
Editorial Proposals, Macworld, 555 De
Haro St., San Francisco, CA 94107. If
you send a query letter, please include
an outline and a short description of
the article you are proposing, a brief
account of your computer-related ex-
perience, and a sample of your work.
120 Volume 1, Number 1
Data
Communications
for the
Macintosh
Welcome, Macintosh!
Since 1978, Winterhalter,
Incorporated has been
providing micro-to-main-
frame communication
solutions to the Fortune
Winterhalter, Incorporated 1500 community. Now,
Macintosh, it’s your turn.
Soon Winterhalter will be
offering a complete line
of data communication
capabilities for the
Macintosh. Look for more
announcements soon.
Winterhalter, Inc.
P.O. Box 2180
Ann Arbor, MI 48106
800-321-7785
open Window
Open Window
An exchange of Macintosh discoveries
Edited by Andrew Fluegelman
Open Window is a forum for
sharing discoveries about the
Macintosh. We invite and en-
courage readers to make con-
tributions to this department.
Perhaps you’ve come up with a
nifty routine, gained some in-
sight into how the Mac or an
application program works, or
even written a short program
that performs a useful function
or creates an interesting diver-
sion. Tell us about it and we’ll
pass your discovery along to
other members of the Mac-
world community. We’ll also
pay $25 to $100 for each Open
Window item published.
Our first contribution to
Open Window comes from
Macworld Contributing Editor
Lon Poole. This hands-on ap-
plication demonstrates one of
the Mac’s unique features — in-
tegrating text and graphics. Fig-
ures 1 through 6 illustrate the
steps involved in setting up a
letterhead using MacPaint and
MacWrite. See the reviews of
MacPaint and MacWrite in the
Review section for a more com-
prehensive explanation of the
features in these programs.
Send your Macintosh discov-
eries to Open Window, 555 De
Haro St., San Francisco, CA
94107, or electronically to
CompuServe 74055,412 or
The Source STE908.
ip&yiiflas ira©m ©©1111©^^
Phyllli Tlon tellory
^hyllli Tlon Gmlloiy
2 1 8 Evaro Avenue
Gunsight, New Mexico 65302
(602) 555-4857
" *
File
Edit
Goodies
Font
FontSize
Style
Figure 1
The logo image is created using MacPaint. The gallery name is in 18-point
bold outlined New York type and filled with different patterns. The grid
option is used to keep the text aligned.
^ 4 File Edit Goodies Font FontSize Style
Figure 2
The background pattern for the logo is created by editing one of the
standard MacPaint patterns.
122
Volume 1, Number 1
ri
aL
at
“a ■
h
□
m
O
m
O
m
CP
a
*
—
Inuert
Trace Edges 9SE
Flip Horizontal
Flip Uertical
Rotate
2s 1*2001 <iaO20G^
!■ Tiia Gailfliry
la Tiaa fiailify
216 Eyaro iAtefijuiei
O’unsigbt^ Mw Mexico 65602
<602) SS5-4657
Figure 3
The selection rectangle is used to select the logo image. Choosing the Copy
command stores a copy of the logo in the Clipboard. After saving the logo
document, you can exit the MacPaint program.
Edit Search Format Font Style
untitled
7^
m
Saue current document as
lUrite/Pai...
[ ]
1 Letterhead |
[ Cancel )
[ Driue ]
1 ^ Entire Document □ Tent Only |
<602) 555-4657
Figure 5
Clicking on the logo image allows you to reposition it in the document. The
MacWrite document with the logo is then saved with the title Letterhead.
^ File
Search Format Font Style
tan i Undo
t; iiX
i ^>I>M
I Untitled i
Bmi
Shorn Clipboard
fk
ici
Edit Search Format Font Style
N<ni»
Open,.,
Close
Saue
Page Setups
Print...
Quit
i Letterhead I
<602) 555-4657
Mr.
Far East Import Company
34 East Camelback Boul«vard
Hercules, California 94355
Dear Fred :
The Navajo rugs we bought from you three months ago have been a smashing success in our Indian
Trading Post ond Curio Shop. Con you get us a dozen more from your supplier in Indio ot the some price?
I've enclosed a purchase order, detailing size ond color.
Regards,
Phyllis Tien
Figure 4
Opening a MacWrite document and choosing the Paste command from the
Edit menu places the logo image in the document.
Figure 6
To write a letter using the letterhead, you would open the MacWrite docu-
ment entitled Letterhead. If you wanted a permanent copy of a letter, you
would choose Save As. . . and save the letter under a unique name.
Macworld 123
Learn to use
your Macintosh
almostas histasyou
can eat one.
Soon after Macintosh joins the Apple
family tree we’ll have an ATI training
program ready to teach you how to use it.
ATI’s “How to Use Your Macintosh”
training disk and handbook will join our
rapidly growing “how-to” series. We’ll
also have training programs for all the best
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Community: Profile
The Making of
the Macintosh
Edited by Andrew Fluegelman
If you could have gone behind the scenes at Apple Computer
while the Macintosh was being created, you would have been
impressed by two things. One would have been the incredi-
ble complexity of the tasks that go into conceiving, building,
testing, and marketing a major new computer. Some features
that stand out in the final product may have been the result
of a moment s inspiration, while others that are invisible to
users were the result of months of hard work. Such is the pro-
cess of building a computer; in that regard, the making of the
Macintosh was not unique.
However, the other thing that would have impressed you
was special: the deep personal commitment and conviction
shared by everyone working on the project. The level of in-
volvement approached religious fervor at times. There was
endless deliberation and debate with never a hint of self-
doubt. The motivation of these “hardware wizards” and
“software evangelists” could not be explained by mere job
descriptions. The people on the Macintosh project were
driven by the unanimous belief that they had an opportunity
to change the ways people work and think.
126 Volume 1, Number 1
Macworld 127
Community
In late November 1983, as the final touches were
being put on the Mac under round-the-clock sched-
ules, I talked with some of the people who played key
roles in the project. The following remarks are edited
from tape-recorded conversations with Mac team
members. Here are the personal reflections of those
who made the machine.
Mike Boich
When I first came to the Macintosh project, I had
nothing to do with software; I was involved in defining
and marketing the Apple label products and building
relationships with outside companies. Since then my
role has evolved almost totally into “software evange-
lism,” which means making sure that the smart, inde-
pendent developers of the world, who have made the
Apple II so successful, invest their best energies in the
Macintosh. Showing the Macintosh to any sharp soft-
ware developer is easy — there’s really no salesman-
ship needed.
In the early days, before the documentation was
complete, my job was mainly to support the indepen-
dent developers and try to determine who the early
developers would be. Prototypes were scarce and so
was the time to support work on them. We decided,
“Let’s pick people who appreciate what the Mac is and
encourage them to develop products that we think are
appropriate for the machine.”
We want to take functional applications and make
them very accessible to people — accessible eco-
nomically and in terms of how^ easy they are to use. We
want to use the machine's power to do things out of
the ordinary. Aesthetics are also an important factor in
every application. The Macintosh is perhaps the first
computer for which artists play a major role in design-
ing the software.
Getting paid to share the Macintosh with people
who appreciate it has been wonderful. Early on maybe
20 people were in the group, and we couldn’t show it
or talk about it to just anyone. If you have a beautiful
thing, you want to tell everyone about it. I was the per-
son who got to show it to the most people and see
their reactions. That in itself was a lot of fun.
Donn Denman
I’ve been working primarily on MacBASIC, which
isn’t going to come out until after the machine is
launched. Recently, I’ve been concentrating on odds
and ends — helping out with the first release of the
softw’are. I worked on one of the desk accessories, the
NotePad, and lately I’ve been working on the printer
application that will facilitate printing files from the
Finder.
Getting last-minute details finished has been
pretty frantic at times. There’s a lot of pressure in creat-
ing software. By its nature, it’s never really finished.
You keep thinking of little things you could make bet-
ter. Software is never done until you have to get it
done and you make the final disks and shrink-wrap
them.
The best part of this project has been freedom —
the freedom to go out on a limb and design something
radically different.
Andy
Hert^eld
I started on the
Macintosh project
in February 1981
when there was
just one tiny wire-
wrapped Mac and
all it could do was
print “HELLO”
about 85 times on
the screen when
you hit Reset. We
were excited to
see it do even that:
“Wow! The com-
puter actually does
something!” For
the first six months of the project we worked on three
things. First, we wrote routines to test the hardware to
make sure that it worked the way it was supposed to.
At the same time, we were getting a development sys-
tem going, figuring out some way we could use the
Lisa to write programs for the Mac.
128 Volume 1, Number 1
The third thing going on at that time was writing
demo programs to get people excited about the ma-
chine. This was before we even had QuickDraw I actu-
ally wrote a mouse-based minisketch program that
allowed you to draw with patterns and shapes. One of
the more famous ones was the “Stretching Muppets.” I
took a screen portrait of the Muppets from the Apple II
and wrote a little routine that was like a funhouse mir-
ror that stretched the image very quickly. The image
flowed like water down a waterfall, almost. I’d like to
resurrect that someday.
We would do hacks that might seem frivolous, but
they actually built excitement about the product. We
had put together a team of sharp people, and we had
to have something that would turn them on.
The early days of the project were the best for me,
because it was us against the world. I’m an outlaw-type
mentality. I like it when people say, “No, it’s impossible
to do that.” That makes me want to do it. It’s been
amazing seeing this infant computer being born,
watching it crackle with raw potential but with none of
it really visible except to people who could imagine it,
and then seeing it come to life over a period of years.
Joanna Hoffman
I started out as part of the research team because
the Macintosh project originally was a research group.
We were working on user interface design and on
coming up with a new way of approaching users. As
the project evolved, I started developing strategies for
various markets. From the beginning I was interested
in making sure that the product would be inter-
national.
One of the things we had to figure out was how to
handle various data formats — dates, currency, and the
like — because different countries handle these things
in different ways. You can’t simply do a straightforward
translation — the conventions are basically different.
We had to make sure that we could accommodate
those various conventions properly.
We have a system that gives anyone who writes
software for the machine the ability to write interna-
tional software. And it will all come out right at the
end; it won’t require redefining the code. A person will
be able to sit down and edit the resource files on the
screen, and then the data format and prompts will au-
tomatically appear in the right form and language for
that country.
Jerry
Manock
We have a five-
person product
design group that
does industrial de-
sign, conceptualiza-
tion, and layout and
mechanical draw-
ings. We handle all
the tooling our-
selves; we’re a self-
contained unit. As
part of that group
I essentially did all
the drawings for
the Macintosh, from
layout to original
models to final production drawings.
Of course, we meant to do everything right the
first time, but there were inevitable minor and major
changes. The most significant change was to the iVi-
inch disk drives halfway through the project. Getting
the design updated in time was the big challenge be-
cause some major modifications had to be done on
hard steel tooling. We told everybody that if we were
to meet the schedule, the plastic would still be hot
when it got to the assembly line, and that’s essentially
happening. But we’ve been lucky to make the sched-
ule that we’re committed to.
It’s always exciting to see the first prototype
working — not just with your parts in it, but with the
software inserted and working. The first one that goes
together and works is definitely a thrill. Then to see a
hundred of them on the assembly line is neat — to see
a thousand of them, ten times neater. But I think I can
speak for all of us: the biggest thrill is to see the enthu-
siasm of people who discover the Macintosh for the
first time. There are many subtle things about the de-
sign of the machine — little features that you probably
would not notice until you’d had it for a week. And we
all know about them. To see people discovering those
features for themselves — to see them say, “Oh, now I
know why they put this here. When I do this, it fits
with that” — that’s really exciting.
Macworld
129
Community
Dave Egner
I’m responsible for meeting the FCC require-
ments for radio frequency interference (RFI). Some
people also call it electromagnetic interference. Those
are just ten-dollar words that basically mean noise that
comes in over your radio or TV set. The computer uses
a l6-MHz crystal oscillator. To give you an idea, the AM
radio band is from .5 MHz to 1.6 MHz. So 16 MHz is
quite fast.
My job was to block out RFI. You can do it for al-
truistic or social reasons, or you can do it because the
law says you have to, which is why most people do.
The FCC has some rather rigorous requirements for
home computers. It’s interesting that the law is actually
much stricter than you think. It’s really on the side of
the consumer in this respect.
It’s never difficult to slap band-aids onto things.
The difficulty is in meeting the requirements and
keeping the computer inexpensive. If you look at some
of the design band-aids that other companies have
done, our solution turns out looking pretty good.
Barbara Koalkin
My job is product marketing manager, and my
group is responsible for all the product-related ac-
tivities that go on within the marketing base. We’ve
worked closely with engineering to finish the product,
test it, package it, document it, and figure out how to
describe it in the product brochure and to the press.
We’re working with third-party vendors to get some in-
itial software and hardware peripherals, and working
on launching the Mac in seven foreign countries as
soon as possible after domestic introduction.
The major challenge has been trying to keep
quality and excellence in everything we do for the
Macintosh while also finishing it in a timely manner so
that we can get the product out on schedule. Making
the right trade-offs between timeliness and quality
have been the most difficult decisions.
Many compromises have come up. “Should we
bundle a piece of software or shouldn’t we? Is it too
late to change the manual? Does the Mac look exactly
like what we want it to be, or should we add another
stroke here?” We make decisions like these every day.
This is the best group of people I’ve ever worked
with in terms of quality, excellence, and energy level.
This may sound corny, but working on the Macintosh
is really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Mike Murray
I’m the mes-
senger of the proj-
ect. My job is to
understand what
the engineers have
done and to put that
into words so plain
folks like me will
be able to under-
stand it.
We faced some
tough choices in
making this prod-
uct. We’ve had to
focus on a few
things and execute
them very well.
We’ve had to make decisions between alternative A
and alternative B. If we choose B and it's the wrong
one, we’re all going to feel bad.
In the process, our course has sometimes been
90 degrees different than the normal course people at
Apple or other companies take in the way they do and
think about things. We’ve had to be problem makers
and then problem solvers. Often the problems we’ve
made have been pretty big ones.
But what has gotten us through all this is the fact
that we believe strongly in what we’re doing and, I
guess, in the romance of the product. We’ve had a love
affair with this thing we call the Macintosh, and it’s
made us all work 90 hours a week.
For myself, the reward has been being able to
stand up in front of groups of people, to talk to them
about the Macintosh, and then to see them respond in
a way that tells us that what we did was right. We aren’t
in the business of bringing out another type of alumi-
num siding or a new loaf of bread — we’re doing some-
thing that’s really going to change the way people do
things.
130 Volume 1, Number 1
Susan Kare
My job is to make the software look nice. It s a
high priority — having the aesthetics of this computer
be as friendly, appealing, and precise as the capabili-
ties allow. I’m responsible for the look of the windows
and dialog boxes and also the fonts and icons.
Even though I didn’t invent the machine or write
the software, I feel a responsibility to have the Mac
software look classy and be appealing without being
cute and becoming tiresome. I look around at the
icons and little symbols that exist on other systems
and I think, “We have to have the best because a lot of
people are going to be using our software for a long
time.”
I think the Mac will become a medium in its own
right. Today most art done on computers is branded
“computer art.” That seems a little ludicrous — if it’s
really good art, you wouldn’t have a computer art
show, you’d have a print show. Some of those prints
would be lithographs and some would be dot matrix.
I think that the Mac can be used to produce quality
graphics good enough to be sold commercially.
Burrell Smith
My official title is “Hardware Wizard.” I started
working on the Mac in the fall of 1979, in the very early
stages. Jeff Raskin had initiated the idea of making an
appliance computer. It had fixed functions and was
tiny and versatile. At that point, Apple had been going
in a different direction, and this appliance computer
was a very “researchy” thing to propose, so I got a sys-
tem up and running quickly. It was an 8-bit machine
that was incredibly tiny, but it didn’t have enough
CPU power.
Around January 1981 Steve Jobs got involved and
said the Lisa group was doing amazing things with
68000 graphics. We came up with a clever way of
hooking the 68000 CPU up to memory. This was our
first effort. Although it was very tiny and had 384 by
256 dots of screen resolution and plenty of computing
power, we wanted a few more things.
We wanted more memory. We wanted a little
higher performance and better communications ca-
pability built into the machine. So we did another pass
and produced what basically is the Macintosh that ex-
ists today.
Throughout the process, my goal was to take that
idea of integrated functionality and make it into a real
kicking, breathing, and screaming computer. Finally,
The Macintosh
is a breakthrough
because it allows both
computer experts and
computer novices to
share the technology.
— Burrell Smith
we were able to pull it off The biggest challenge was
simply fitting it all in and having it do the things that
we wanted it to do, such as having amazing sound
capability.
For me, it also was a challenge, coming from my
lowly background as a service technician. Being able
to go from the very bottom of the company to a top
technical position is the kind of thing that happens
only at Apple.
The process I used to come up with these new de-
signs was to prototype in my head. You can come up
with an idea and you’re able to analyze it to see
whether that idea has any merit before you put your
pencil on paper. It allows you to build thousands of
prototypes — ^^little mental creations that you can ex-
plore without having to build a breadboard and a thou-
sand different things. If you had to sort through
physical models, you’d be wiring forever.
People are going to think that the Mac is a break-
through because it represents a critical point that al-
lows both computer experts and computer novices to
share the technology, each at their own levels of effec-
tiveness. Previously, computers have been designed as
machines that computer science people think ought to
be good for other people.
Maov'orld 131
Community
With the Mac, we Ve been able to experiment
enough to find exactly the right combinations — keep-
ing the user interface consistent while maintaining the
functionality of the machine. Many people will take a
Mac out of the box, plug in the cables, put in a disk,
and immediately be able to use the computer. That’s
something people have not been able to do before.
With the Mac, we’re saying, “It’s okay to have power,
but it’s not okay to require people to know much more
than they need to know to control the machine.”
The key to the Mac is to spare people from having
to know all the complexities of its innards. Computer
people nowadays want to get things done — they want
to concentrate on their problems. When they’re pre-
senting a graph, they want to be thinking about the lit-
tle subtleties they want to portray. I think with the Mac
you’ll find that for the first time people truly will be
concentrating on the problem itself and not on the
computer hardware mechanisms.
Those of us who made the Mac have had to live in
two worlds. As the designers and synthesizers of the
machine, we have had to know every last detail about
the system. But we also had to function as consum-
ers — very fussy consumers. We all said, “What would I
want to see the computer do? What would my kid
brother want to see? What’s the least amount of hassle
that we can put people through and allow them to ex-
perience the joy of creating things that they never
thought they could do?”
Chris
Espinosa
I was mainly
responsible for
pulling together the
Macintosh user in-
terface guidelines
documentation —
the way of using
windows so that all
the applications re-
semble each other
and work similarly.
On many other
computer systems,
every application is
written by a differ-
ent person in a dif-
ferent place, and they each have their own ideas of
how to make a computer work. That’s terrific for the
application writers, but not for users who have to learn
every application and its way of using cursors, choos-
ing commands, and selecting information.
With the Macintosh we wanted to determine a
certain way to do all those functions, and then have
everybody agree to do it that way. To hasten that agree-
ment, we wrote the programs to do user interface
things and put those programs in the ROM. They’re
the User Interface Toolbox, and they make the Mac dif-
ferent from any other mouse-based computer. All the
applications will work the same because we agreed on
a way to build the Toolbox into every single machine.
Developing the user interface guidelines involved
a lot of give-and-take and negotiation. It was about half
design and half politics.
Jerome Coonen
I started in February 1983 as the section manager
of the software group. In some ways my job is just to
hold hands — to make sure everybody’s happy and
knows what to do. I like technical work, and once in a
while I actually get to do something useful. I contrib-
ute something I have on paper or diskette somewhere,
and in a sense that gives me the most pleasure. But
that’s not really my job — it’s a luxury for me.
There were two big pushes on the software end.
The first was finalizing the ROM, which we finished in
September. The second was finishing the RAM-based
operating system, which went out on diskettes in De-
cember. Each of those had a “drop-dead” date; my job
was to make sure we hit all the milestones along the
way. Sometimes that involved juggling people around,
trying to get them to do the most critical task at any
given time. Usually it was just a matter of coaxing —
trying to assure my supervisors that everything was
going along smoothly.
Scheduling software is almost impossible. I don’t
know anybody who knows how to do that. I certainly
don’t. When I started, I spent about two months trying
to figure out a schedule for the ROM. It was a waste of
time. We just had to keep looking every step of the
way, trying to see if everybody was on track. Dealing
with people is difficult when a lot of volatile, individual
personalities are around, but that’s the nature of any
management job.
No other product looks anything like the Mac;
people will be awed by it. But if we have bugs that
make the programs crash, people will just notice that it
crashes, no matter how good it looks.
132 Volume 1, Number 1
Bob Belleville
I came to the project in April 1982. 1 had the job of
trying to put in place all the pieces that would get the
product on the market. I’ve been in the computer busi-
ness more than 18 years. Many of my own designs
never saw the light of day. They were perfectly good
designs, but they didn’t get out because there was no
champion for the project, no way of working through
the corporate maze and the corporate malaise. Even in
a company like Apple, which is supposed to be lean
and mean, small and well managed, it’s hard to get a
product finished.
There was a tendency among this group to keep
refining the design — trying to make it perfect. Some-
times perfection is a little too far down the design
scheme. I made it my goal to be sure that the fine work
of all these people at Apple got out in a timely fashion.
George Crow
Originally I was hired to design the power supply
and the CRT portion of the machine. As the project
matured I picked up responsibility for the disk drive.
Initially, we had planned on using the same 5^/4-inch
disk drive as in the Lisa. To put it tactfully, we decided
that the 3i/2-inch drive was the drive of the future, so in
the middle of the project we switched over to the little
3V"2-inch hard shell disks. I’ve always been a strong pro-
ponent of them; in fact I was so strong for them that 1
wound up lining up original equipment manufacturers
for the drives.
Bill Atkinson
I was the main designer of the Lisa, and when we
brought its technology over to the Macintosh, I came
to the project to do an application. On Lisa I did only
systems programs, but for the Macintosh I wanted to
do an end-user application so that I could have more
direct contact with the actual users. The result is
MacPaint.
One of my central jobs has been to make sure that
the Lisa and the Macintosh are compatible. Toward that
end, the QuickDraw graphics package is 100 percent
identical on both machines. Moving applications from
one to the other is easy.
Designing MacPaint required a lot of iteration to
make it simple — maybe 90 percent of the work was in
designing the program as opposed to coding it. The
program took a great deal of work to perfect — the first
ten times I was simply willing to rewrite it.
I tried out versions of it on a number of people.
When I saw they were confused and didn’t understand
it, I knew I must have the wrong model. I find that
when you start getting an application really simple and
clean, all the pieces start falling together.
Figuring out how to do the lasso was very impor-
tant. Instead of describing the complex mechanisms
underneath MacPaint that allow you to make a non-
rectangular selection, I provided a simple metaphor to
draw a ring around something: the way a lasso tightens
around an object and grabs it. Underneath that simple
action, MacPaint is going through a lot of processing.
The lateness of the transition was the most critical
part of installing the new drives. We even got as far as
making hard tooling with a 5!4-inch slot. We had to
change the bezel. We were really under the gun be-
cause we brought Sony in about May of 1983. Their
drives have been super performers — they’re really
going to work out well for us.
Among the nicest things the customer will see is
how easy it is to handle the disks.
Macworld 133
Community
If you keep the design team of a computer system
very small, you can all be of one mind and spend less
time arguing about what to build and more time work-
ing together to build it. When people were about to
join the team, we showed them the Mac, and if they
weren’t excited enough to want to take it right home,
they didn’t belong on the team.
Watching people use the Macintosh and get ex-
cited, particularly people who aren’t computer jocks,
is rewarding. Computer jocks are thrilled because they
realize how much work is behind it, but people with-
out much knowledge of computers don’t know that —
they just love the way it works. They appreciate useful-
ness rather than technical achievement.
Bruce Horn
I’ve worked mainly on the software that you don’t
see very much: operating system things such as the file
system, memory manager, drivers, basic I/O, and inter-
rupts. I spent a lot of time on the software for the Sony
disk, and before that the “Twiggy” [Lisa] disk. When we
first got the Sony drives, we weren’t sure we could read
and write to them. The disk driver is a very technical
program. You’ve got only about 16 microseconds to try
to get a byte in. You’ve got to handshake everything.
It’s a matter of paying attention to detail. I worry a lot
about interrupts. We get habituated to the machine be-
cause we’re sitting here every day with it, but I think
outside people are going to be blown away by its capa-
bilities.
Steve Capps
I came on fairly late in the game, as a sort of desig-
nated janitor. I played clean-up everywhere.
When I first got here Andy Hertzfeld casually
asked whether I could do the text editing package in
1.5K [IK = 1024 bytes]. He later admitted that he was
willing to accept 2K but said 1.5 so that I’d make the 2K
limit. When I first wrote the code, it was only IK of Pas-
cal, and I said, “Wow, I have it made, no sweat!” But it
was too slow and therefore basically unusable. You
might not think so, but creating a text editor is actually
one of the most asymmetrical problems I’ve ever at-
tacked. It turns out to be “special cases deluxe.” It was
very challenging and frustrating because I’d work hard
and get nowhere. Then I’d put it away for about a week
and try again.
Suddenly one day it was easy. I must have waked
up or something, and I just got an idea of how to do it.
It ended up being about 2400 bytes, but I’d never been
in such a crunch mode. The result is the text edit pack-
age that’s built into the ROM. It’s the little routine that
takes over when you’re asked to type in a file name.
Larry Kenyon
I was hired originally to work on the Finder. In
thinking about that and about some of the interna-
tional considerations, I came up with the idea for the
Resource Manager. It took awhile for everyone to ac-
cept it, but it’s been pretty useful. The Resource Man-
ager was done later in the project. As a result, various
people had to lift the entire operating system up so
that I could slide the Resource Manager underneath
and then plunk down the rest and hope that every-
thing worked.
134
Volume 1, Number 1
The reason the Resource Manager is so useful is
that it allows a program to be independent of any
human language. It s the key to creating international
versions of programs and the reason that we think the
Mac will be an important machine in many countries.
The best part of this project for me has been
working with really great people. The most difficult
aspect has been giving up the other parts of my life
to do it.
Rony Sebok
When I came here they had pretty much gotten
things settled down, but there was a great deal of test-
ing to be done because we were just about to freeze
the ROM. I helped out with testing the ROM code.
Everyone’s going to get a training disk with the
Mac, and part of it teaches you how to use the mouse.
So I wrote this cute program that makes you drag a
mouse through a maze so that you learn mouse dex-
terity and how to point. There’s a little magician and a
bunch of hats. You point to a hat and out pop various
nice graphics that Susan Rare drew.
I started on the project July 11, 1983, right out of
Harvard. I had interviewed with about 12 companies,
and someone suggested that I look at Apple. I talked to
the Mac people, and I was turned on right away by this
group. Everyone is really excited about the project.
They’re bright and dedicated to getting great comput-
ers out into the world. I think that will be reflected in
the product.
Steve Jobs
The people who are doing the work are the mov-
ing force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a
space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization
and keep it at bay. I can’t spend enough time here, un-
fortunately, because I have other responsibilities. But
every spare moment I have, I dash back because this is
the most fun place in the world.
This is the neatest group of people I’ve ever
worked with. They’re all exceptionally bright, but
more importantly they share a quality about the way
they look at life, which is that the journey is the re-
ward. They really want to see this product out in the
world. It’s more important than their personal lives
right now.
The Apple II had a magical feel about it. You
couldn’t quantify it, but you could tell. The Macintosh
is the second thing in my life that’s ever felt that way.
Opportunities like this don’t come along very often.
You know somehow that it’s the start of something
great. So everyone wants it to be perfect and works
really hard on it. Everyone feels a personal responsi-
bility for the project.
The Macintosh is the future of Apple Computer.
And it’s being done by a bunch of people who are in-
credibly talented but who in most organizations would
be working three levels below the impact of the deci-
sions they’re making in this organization. It’s one of
those things that you know won’t last forever. The
group might stay together maybe for one more itera-
tion of the product, and then they’ll go their separate
ways. For a very special moment, all of us have come
together to make this new product. We feel this may
be the best thing we’ll ever do with our lives.
MaofV'orld
135
^ Community: Macintosh Graphics
Macworld Gallery
An exhibition of
Macintosh graphics
Jeffrey S. Young, Curator
The Macintosh is certain to attract many
people who are intrigued by the potential
of Bill Atkinson’s MacPaint graphics pro-
gram. Professional artists and people who
have never touched a paintbrush will be
exploring the intricacies of the Mac’s elec-
tronic easel. Macworld Gallery, a regular
Macworld feature, will serve as a show-
case for the talent and creativity of “Mac
artists,” exhibiting their unique artwork
and sharing their comments about the
techniques they used to create their
drawings.
Macworld Gallery's first featured art-
ist is Susan Kare, one of the inner circle of
creative people who helped shape the
Mac. Susan joined the Macintosh develop-
ment team about a year ago as the “resi-
dent artist,” and is responsible for creating
many of the graphic images that make up
the desktop environment as well as the
type fonts used in MacWrite and
MacPaint.
Susan has extensive training in the
“traditional” fine arts, including a Ph.D. in
Art History from New York University, but
she had never used a computer before join-
ing the Mac development team. She began
working on an Apple II with a graphics tab-
let, quickly adapting her skills to the new
medium and enjoying the flexibility the
computer offers in creating drawings.
But the Mac and the MacPaint pro-
gram are her real forte. The series of draw-
ings that Susan has lent to Macworld
Gallery demonstrate what is graphically
possible with the Mac. As such, “Susion,” as
the Mac team calls her, is the ideal artist to
introduce Macworld Gallery
Oriental Girl
Oriental Girl
“Steve Jobs had a beautiful book of Chi-
nese woodcuts, and we wondered what it
would be like to make a facsimile. We ran
this one through a digitizer (a kind of TV
camera that produces a bit-map display of
whatever it is focused on), and read the re-
sult onto a Mac disk. Then I sketched in the
details to enhance the image.
“In the hair, for instance, where there
are streaks of white in the black, I used the
single-dot brush shape — which IVe found
to be one of the most useful tools — to
paint white over the black. To create the
flower design on the robe, I drew a single
flower, peeled off several copies [holding
136 Volume 1, Number 1
Mouse with Arrow
down the §§ and Option keys while you
drag a selected section of a drawing “peels
off,” or makes, multiple copies],^and moved
them around. Then I went back’in and
blurred the detail by painting in black with
the single-dot brush.”
Mouse with Arrow
“I drew the Macintosh mouse to see if I
could make a hard-edged, technical il-
lustration; I wanted tc get a transfer-film
sort of effect. Every pattern in this drawing
is from the default pattern palette, and
every tool I used is from the standard tool
palette. It’s just a simple, straightforward il-
lustration that anyone could do with a little
practice on the Mac.
“Another thing I’ve learned is that some
things look great when xeroxed, while oth
ers don’t. For instance, black lines come
out terrific, but gray is not so hot. After a
little while you figure out what will work
and what won’t.”
Macworld 137
fH Community
Knots & Vines
“You could have a disk with all sorts of or-
namental details — architectural features,
special patterns, logos, and so on. This
drawing shows what you can do with a re-
peating design. I made up three sets of
three leaves, then I peeled off a copy and
flipped it, so instead of three originals, I
had six. Then I filled the screen with cop-
ies and started moving them at random
into rows.
“The knots in the border were done at
the single-dot level with Fatbits. I crossed
the straight lines to form the outside, then
lassoed the middle where they crossed,
and tried flipping and inverting it. Then I
worked on the knots in Fatbits until I had
the effect I wanted. Notice that I alternated
the kind of knot at each of the crossings,
because nobody ever ties a knot the same
way twice.”
Macintosh Report Cover
“I wanted to make something that anyone
could use to improve the look of reports,
memos, or any type of office paperwork. It
doesn’t have to look sensational, just ap-
pealing. I was trying to make this look a lit-
tle like a woodcut.
“The diagonal letters were sketched
freehand with the pencil and then filled in
with the paintbrush. I used Fatbits to clean
it all up. I change the pattern of the shirt
every month, so that with just a slight varia-
tion I can make each report distinctive.
“The line of vertical stitching on either
side of the buttons was done by clicking in
a heavier vertical black line (using the Shift
key to keep it straight), and then taking out
one dot at a given interval. Look carefully
in the center of the buttons, where the two
strands of thread cross. I popped out a sin-
gle dot on either side to give it the illusion
of depth.”
Knots & Vines
Macintosh Report Cover
138
Volume 1, Number 1
Robot Paper Dolls
“I was just playing around, trying to come
up with something that parents could do
with their kids on the Mac. What if you had
a disk with a hundred dolls, each with its
own set of clothes patterns, and you could
print up different sets for as long as you
wanted to?
“You’d simply paste a copy of the doll on
the screen, and then start building the
clothes around it. It would be easy for a
child to use the paint bucket to fill in differ-
ent patterns in the clothes. If the child had
experience with the Mac, he or she could
create personalized patterns with mono-
grams.
“Putting something like this on disk
could produce virtually inexhaustible toy
supplies.”
roBOi PapEp PoLLSi
Robot Paper Dolls
Mac Sluggers
“This drawing was done when MacPaint
was in its primary stages. There wasn’t a
spray can, so I had to create the baseball
image dot by dot. I went to a meeting with
the software people, and they thought the
drawing was digitized. I took that com-
ment as a compliment, because I was try-
ing to make it look realistic.
“Many of the things that were painstak-
ing to do at that time can now be done with
ease. The stitching on the ball can be drag-
ged around with the lasso. The ‘sluggers’
on the bottom row are created by copying
the figure across the screen.”
fHEmORIRL PRRH.CUPERTinO
Mac Sluggers
Maov'orld
139
^ Community
Acme Detective Agency
“See that lettuce on top of the burger? I
gave it that rippled, wavy effect by drawing
in a pattern, lassoing one little section at a
time, and moving it just a dot or two off
When the section drops back in place, it’s
skewed just a little, giving the drawing a
more three-dimensional look. I also
touched it up a bit with the spray can in
white to give it an even more ripply effect.
“The rest of the drawing is variations on
ovals. For the tomato I took an oval and
then stretched it, filled it in, and sprayed
just a bit of white from the spray can to give
it some highlighting. The hamburger bun
was made out of two half-ovals. I made two
ovals, cut off the top of one and the bottom
of another, and joined them together —
that’s why each has a different shape. Then
I made a copy and, with a few changes in
perspective, I had another bun.”
To be considered for exhibi-
tion in Macworld Gallery, send
a paper copy of your drawing
and a short paragraph de-
scribing the techniques you
used to create the drawing to
Macworld Gallery, 555 De
Haro St., San Francisco, CA
94107. Macworld pays $25 for
each drawing exhibited. If
your drawing is selected for
exhibition, we ask that you
send a copy of it on disk.
ACEflE Detective Agency
P.O. Box 2554 Altoona, PA
24 January 1964
Dear Sid:
Just got back from the Orient. Unfortunately, v/e
never did find the missing jewels or the heiress. Spotted
an interesting camera in the Bangkok airport gift
shop, though --should be standard issue around ACME.
Lightweight, waterproof, and a dead ringer for a cheeseburger.
You load the film (35i^m) between the cheese and the lettuce--
bite on the tomato to release the shutter. The pickle slice
advances the film, the onion ring changes f-stops.
I think they'd be a heck of a lot more efficient than that
saxophone camera Wilkerson picked up in Tuscaloosa.
Let me know what you think. Have to find my glasses and
catch a plane.
Regards,
Agent 319
Acme Detective Agency
140 Volume 1, Number 1
Mioosofe greatest hits
are nowplaying mAfedntodi.
MULl IPLANf The most powerful spreadsheet on the market.
CHART The first truly sophisticated and flexible graphics
system for personal computers.
WORD* Most dedicated word processors can’t touch it.
FILE* Finally, a data manager advanced enough to be simple.
MICROSOFT® BASIC* The industry standard. Plus special
commands for the mouse and bit-mapped graphics.
Microsoft and Multiplan are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.
Macintosh is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.
Microsoft was founded on the idea that computers should
be simple, easy and intuitive. The new Macintosh environ-
ment gives us a great opportunity to prove that idea.
Well start with four of our high performance programs
to make the most of your Mac. And there are more to come.
Lots more.
Pioneering like this is nothing new for us. We wrote the first
microcomputer BASIC in 1975 and developed the operating
system for the IBM® PC.
If you’d like to make the most of your Mac, call 800-426-9400
(in Washington state, call 206-828-8088) for a free brochure
and the name of your nearest Microsoft dealer.
Macworld Authors
David Bunnell, Publisher of
Macworld, is the founder of
Personal Computing, PC, and
PC World magazines. He par-
ticipated in the creation of
the first personal computer,
organized the first personal
computer trade show, and
published the first magazine
with a bound-in floppy disk.
Matthew Douglas is a free-
lance writer specializing in
microcomputer applications.
Andrew Fluegelman is the
Editor-in-Chief of Macworld
and PC World. He is the author
of the popular communications
program PC-Talk and coauthor
of Writing in the Computer
Age.
Lon Poole is a Contributing
Editor oi Macworld and the
author of several computer
books including The Apple II
Users Guide.
Andrew Williams is a Con-
tributing Editor of Macworld
and PC World and the author of
WHAT IF. . .A Guide to Select-
ing and Using Electronic
Spreadsheets on the IBM PC
and The Know How Guide to
SuperCalc 1, 2, and 3, both
forthcoming this year.
Jeffrey S. Young is a freelance
journalist who has written for
several national publications
including Esquire.
Advertisers
American Training International, 12, 124
Apple Computer, 6-7
Davong, IBC
Dilithium Press, 103
Howard W Sams, 48
Human Edge, 4-5
Living Video Text, 33
Microtek, 31
Microsoft, IFC, 9, 141
Odesta, 49
Persyst, 47, 125
Software Publishing, 93
Tecmar, 1, BC
Verbatim, 8
Winterhalter, 121
Invitation
to Writers
■ ■■■■■■■■■■ Macworld invites writers to
submit articles for publication. Articles
should be focused to fit within the edi-
torial structure of the magazine.
AAAAAAAAAA Mucworld consists of four edi-
torial sections: State of the Art, Review,
Hands On, and Community. State
of the Art covers developing technol-
ogies for the Macintosh. In Review,
new Macintosh hardware and software
are critically and objectively analyzed
by experienced users. Hands On
offers how-to articles that instruct
readers on Macintosh applications.
Community articles describe the im-
pact of the Macintosh in workplaces,
schools, and homes.
wmmmm- MacwoHd accepts commen-
taries for the guest editorial depart-
ment, NotePad. User group members
are invited to submit articles on any
facet of their organization.
• • • • • Articles may be submitted by
query or as unsolicited manuscripts to
Editorial Proposals, Macworld, 555 De
Haro St., San Francisco, CA 94107. If
you send a query letter, please include
an outline and a short description of
the article you are proposing, a brief
account of your computer-related ex-
perience, and a sample of your work.
142 Volume 1, Number 1
Coming %
Attractions
The following summaries describe a few of the
articles to he featured in upcoming issues
q/'Mac'wx)rld.
State of the Art
The Lisa Connection
On the same da\' that the Macintosh was
launched, Apple announced a new’ version of its Lisa
computer — Lisa 2 — that is designed to run all the
Macintosh softw’are. We’ll take a look at the Mac’s “big
sister" and evaluate wliat you can do with 1 megabvae
of memor\^ and 10 megabytes of Winchester disk
storage.
In Search of the Finder
Have you wx)ndered wiiat rearranges icons
on the desktop, asks \x)u to switch disks, and generally
keeps track of w hat’s going on w hile you w'ork on the
Mac? The answ'er is the Finder. We’ll discover wiiere it
“lives," imestigate how^ it w'orks, and suggest w^ays to
make the Finder wx)rk for you.
Review
MacTerminal
The Mac’s link to the wx)rld is the serial
port that lets you communicate with computers of
every stripe, including other Macs. The softw^are that
implements this capability is a communications
program. We’ll review’ Apple’s version of this essential
software, MacTerminal.
Microsoft Chart
Business graphics are now^ accessible to all
Mac users through Microsoft Chart, the first graphing
and plotting program available on the Macintosh. We’ll
present an in-depth analysis of this program’s pow’erful
features that translate numeric data into informative
graphics presentations.
Hands On
Communications Primer
Going on line with the world requires a
number of special communications skills. We’ll show
you how to connect your Mac to the phone lines using
a modem and explain the protocols computers use
when they speak to each other. We’ll also describe
wx^rking routines to help you profit from each
communications session and acquaint you with on-line
services available to Mac owmers.
The Business Graphics Gallery
This hands-on article will explain some of
the tools available in programs such as Microsoft
Chart. We’ll present tips for preparing business
graphics presentations, including advice on selecting
chart styles and modifications and an explanation of
analytical tools available through graphics and
statistical manipulation.
Community
The Class of ’84
Apple Computer has embarked on an
ambitious program for “seeding" Macs in more than a
dozen colleges and universities. We’ll describe the
introduction of the Mac on campus and the ways
different college administrators are implementing the
plan. We’ll speculate about the impact that this
program may have on the way students learn, study,
and communicate.
The Electronic Auditor
Peat Marwick Mitchell and Co. developed
an auditing program, SEACAS, that runs on the
Macintosh. The company plans to send two thousand
of its senior auditors out on consultations equipped
with a Mac and SEACAS. We’ll examine the goals and
strategies for using the program to computerize
accounting tasks previously performed with
calculators and pencils.
Plus
The Mac's hidden function keys
The future of data base management
Digitizing images for the Mac
A review o/Microsoft Word
Tips on working'with a single disk drive system
An interview with Bill Atkinson, cre<^/or o/MacPaint
Tips atid suggestions from readers in Open Window’
An exhibition of Macintosh art in Macworld Gallery
Macintosh product descriptions in Macw’are New\s
Maa\'orId 143
Introducing
MACWORLD
The Macintosh Magazine
The Exciting New Magazine for
the World’s Most Creative Personal
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Personal computing took a giant leap into the fu-
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bring you everything you need to explore and get
the most out of your Macintosh. From the latest
product news to innovative business applications,
from amazing graphics to personal productivity
tools and games, each issue of Macworld will be
packed with interesting, practical, readable informa-
tion written by skilled, perceptive writers.
Each month we’ll be creating a Macworld com-
munity; sharing ideas, problems, and creative solu-
tions while we explore the world of Macintosh
together.
So why take a chance on missing a single exciting
issue? For a limited time only you can subscribe to
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And coming very soon from Davong are a 28 mega-
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